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= (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.
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.
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.
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....
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yes, the public expected Trafalgar and did not get it.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on July 18, 2021, 04:36:24 PM
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.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on July 18, 2021, 04:36:24 PM
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.
Quote from: Berkut on July 18, 2021, 03:50:57 PM
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.
Quote
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.
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.
Quote from: Berkut on July 18, 2021, 03:55:36 PM
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.
I'd argue that the Germans won, if anyone did. They set out to force attrition on the Grand Fleet, and did so. Which side would have preferred to have another ten Jutlands? The problem with the German "victory" (if it was one) was that they didn't attempt to repeat it very vigorously, and the Grand Fleet soon became strong enough to make even Jutland-style attrition endurable.
One could argue that the status quo suited the British, but if that was the case, why did Jellico even seek a battle? He could have ensured that the Germans could not bombard the British ports, and the Germans would have had to withdraw anyway. Maybe the British were
not satisfied with the status quo.
Quote from: Berkut on July 18, 2021, 04:12:05 PM
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?
Assuming that the British won, which is a bit of a reach, one can still see that the two major British commanders had very different policies and styles of command, which clashed at Jutland.
Jellico was a very methodical commander who tried to direct everything from his flagship, even though he didn't have (and knew he didn't have) the command and control necessary to centrally direct things with any efficiency. His was what he thought was the least-bad solution, one that might prevent decisive victory but would also prevent decisive loss.
Beatty was more of an informal, "follow my lead" kind of leader. He improvised (in the case of his improvements to firing speeds, disastrously) and tended to have his own, informal rules. He didn't communicate those well to people outside his inner circle, though, which left poor Admiral Evans-Thomas behind twice because Beatty didn't ever talk to E-T before the battle, and tell him that the Battlecruiser Fleet didn't follow Royal navy signaling procedures.
OTOH, the US admirals and captains who served in the Grand Fleet under Beatty thought that he was a brilliant commander and motivator, able to maintain high morale in the fleet under the most boring of conditions, and they were sure he would decisively crush the Germans if they came out.
Quote from: Berkut on July 18, 2021, 04:13:43 PM
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.
Not so awesome for the crews of
Good Hope and
Monmouth. Massie was wrong, by the way, in asserting that those ships were mostly manned by recently-activated reservists. More recent research shows that.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on July 18, 2021, 04:36:24 PM
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.
The idea that the German High Seas Fleet never came out again is one of those persistent myths that is incorrect. The Germans, in fact, had two more fleet sorties in 1916 and two in 1917. By 1918, there was only sufficient boiler-quality coal for one more operation.
Quote from: Berkut on July 18, 2021, 05:04:08 PM
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.
There would have been significant benefits to the UK had they won at Jutland, but the cost of defeat (which would only have come had Jellicoe been lured into torpedo range of the German light forces without his own light forces to defend himself) clearly outweighed any benefit that the British could gain through victory. A minor loss was still a win for Jellicoe, once the decision to seek an action was taken.
Quote from: Berkut on July 18, 2021, 05:14:28 PM
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.
Actually, the German Pre-dreads didn't slow the fleet by much (though they couldn't have kept up their maximum speeds for very long) and were useful in the night action, with their multiple intermediate-size guns. The Germans shouldn't have brought them (and politics forced Scheer's ahnd), but at least they had a purpose once they were assigned to the mission. The British ACs just blundered about fouling the range until they were blown up.
Quote from: grumbler on July 18, 2021, 05:16:07 PM
Quote from: Berkut on July 18, 2021, 03:55:36 PM
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.
I'd argue that the Germans won, if anyone did. They set out to force attrition on the Grand Fleet, and did so. Which side would have preferred to have another ten Jutlands? The problem with the German "victory" (if it was one) was that they didn't attempt to repeat it very vigorously, and the Grand Fleet soon became strong enough to make even Jutland-style attrition endurable.
One could argue that the status quo suited the British, but if that was the case, why did Jellico even seek a battle? He could have ensured that the Germans could not bombard the British ports, and the Germans would have had to withdraw anyway. Maybe the British were not satisfied with the status quo.
Jellico was happy to have a battle where he took the entire GF up against the HSF, because that was a battle he was very, very likely to win.
The Germans wanted a battle where they could peal off piece of the GF and beat just it - they failed to get that battle.
I think Jellico would have LOVED to have another fleet on fleet battle, because even after Jutland, he still had a significant advantage in number of ships.
It's true that Britain could not win the war by destroying the HSF, and Germany could have won (in theory) by some kind of amazing outcome where they take on and destroy the GF while not having the HSF destroyed. But that outcome was incredibly unlikely unless they managed to win a preliminary fight more on their terms, which is what they were trying to do - and they failed.
Quote from: grumbler on July 18, 2021, 05:34:33 PM
Quote from: Berkut on July 18, 2021, 04:12:05 PM
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?
Assuming that the British won, which is a bit of a reach, one can still see that the two major British commanders had very different policies and styles of command, which clashed at Jutland.
Jellico was a very methodical commander who tried to direct everything from his flagship, even though he didn't have (and knew he didn't have) the command and control necessary to centrally direct things with any efficiency. His was what he thought was the least-bad solution, one that might prevent decisive victory but would also prevent decisive loss.
Beatty was more of an informal, "follow my lead" kind of leader. He improvised (in the case of his improvements to firing speeds, disastrously) and tended to have his own, informal rules. He didn't communicate those well to people outside his inner circle, though, which left poor Admiral Evans-Thomas behind twice because Beatty didn't ever talk to E-T before the battle, and tell him that the Battlecruiser Fleet didn't follow Royal navy signaling procedures.
OTOH, the US admirals and captains who served in the Grand Fleet under Beatty thought that he was a brilliant commander and motivator, able to maintain high morale in the fleet under the most boring of conditions, and they were sure he would decisively crush the Germans if they came out.
Yes, the book definitely gave one that impression - that Beatty was a brilliant tactical commander, agressive, and his men worshipped him.
I actually look at it and think that both men were exactly where they needed to be. Beatty as the commander of the "fast" portion of the GF (the BCs and the most modern BBs that could keep up with him), and Jellico in overall command.
Quote from: grumbler on July 18, 2021, 05:39:09 PM
Quote from: Berkut on July 18, 2021, 04:13:43 PM
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.
Not so awesome for the crews of Good Hope and Monmouth. Massie was wrong, by the way, in asserting that those ships were mostly manned by recently-activated reservists. More recent research shows that.
Well war is never ACTUALLY awesome in reality. It is a bunch of people dying and suffering for rather dubious purposes.
Quote from: grumbler on July 18, 2021, 05:45:28 PM
The idea that the German High Seas Fleet never came out again is one of those persistent myths that is incorrect. The Germans, in fact, had two more fleet sorties in 1916 and two in 1917.
And how did that work out?
QuoteBy 1918, there was only sufficient boiler-quality coal for one more operation.
Why was that?
Quote from: Berkut on July 18, 2021, 07:11:58 PM
Jellico was happy to have a battle where he took the entire GF up against the HSF, because that was a battle he was very, very likely to win.
The Germans wanted a battle where they could peal off piece of the GF and beat just it - they failed to get that battle.
I think Jellico would have LOVED to have another fleet on fleet battle, because even after Jutland, he still had a significant advantage in number of ships.
It's true that Britain could not win the war by destroying the HSF, and Germany could have won (in theory) by some kind of amazing outcome where they take on and destroy the GF while not having the HSF destroyed. But that outcome was incredibly unlikely unless they managed to win a preliminary fight more on their terms, which is what they were trying to do - and they failed.
Jellicoe
did have a battle where he had the entire GF against the HSF, and he lost 6 major and 8 minor ships to sink 2 major and 9 minor ships, suffering more than twice the casualties and almost twice the tonnage he inflicted.
The British wanted a battle where they could sink the entire HSF, and didn't get it. The Germans, as you note, wanted to cut off a portion of the GF and defeat it - which they sorta got, given that they brought the BCF under the fire of the HSF and sank 1/3 of it.
The presumption that Jellicoe would have wanted a re-engagement because he would assuredly have won is marred only by the fact that when he got his engagement, he didn't win. Another outcome like the historical one would have seen the British reduced to just 3 battlecruisers, while the Germans would also be down to three, but much better ones.
I don't think that the evidence shows that the British won at Jutland. I think that they suffered a tactical defeat, but one which was meaningless in the strategic picture.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on July 18, 2021, 07:38:40 PM
Quote from: grumbler on July 18, 2021, 05:45:28 PM
The idea that the German High Seas Fleet never came out again is one of those persistent myths that is incorrect. The Germans, in fact, had two more fleet sorties in 1916 and two in 1917.
And how did that work out?
QuoteBy 1918, there was only sufficient boiler-quality coal for one more operation.
Why was that?
Red herring much? :lol:
Let's imagine a hypothetical battle, Schmutland, which is exactly like Jutland, except that the ship type and tonnage sinkings are reversed. That I suppose everyone would agree would be a clear British victory. And yet in terms of strategic impact on the war, Schmutland would be almost indistinguishable from Jutland. A point which a great mind already made in this thread:
QuoteThere would have been significant benefits to the UK had they won at Jutland, but the cost of defeat (which would only have come had Jellicoe been lured into torpedo range of the German light forces without his own light forces to defend himself) clearly outweighed any benefit that the British could gain through victory. A minor loss was still a win for Jellicoe, once the decision to seek an action was taken.
You can argue that Jellicoe had the easier task, in that all he had to do was get the Germans to sail back to port while avoiding catastrophe. Yet there are enough historical examples of catastrophe to give one pause. The ability not to screw things up beyond repair should not be under-estimated.
I think focusing on "sinkings" is a bit misleading as well.
The Germans built some damn fine battle cruisers that did not sink, but were pretty much effectively destroyed and useless for the fight. In terms of the outcome of the battle, they lost Derfflinger (out of action for like 4 months?), Lutzow was sunk, Moltke had 4 working guns, Seydlitz was a wreck, and I think Van Der Tann was heavily damaged as well.
Kudos to the Germans for building them tough, but looking at just what actually sank doesn't tell the entire story of the battle and its outcome. They left because they had lost their ability to have any chance of winning the next morning, and had they stuck around, the high seas fleet would have been destroyed.
If the Germans and Brits fought another Jutland a day later, the British would still have more battle cruisers available then the Germans. If they fought a week later, they would have had more. A month? More. 6 months? More.
By the time the damage from Jutland was repaired and the scouting squadron able to sail as a unit again, the Brits were easily able to make up for the loss of their three battlecruisers.
The Germans set out to change the ratio of ships. They failed to do so, and the blockade continued.
Great, now I have to play Rule the Waves 2 again!
What did the AARs of the two sides say about how happy or not they were with the outcome? I assume that the British AAR survives, but does the German? I know that an AAR might not talk that much about grand strategy considerations, but still.
Quote from: The Brain on July 19, 2021, 02:55:12 AM
What did the AARs of the two sides say about how happy or not they were with the outcome? I assume that the British AAR survives, but does the German? I know that an AAR might not talk that much about grand strategy considerations, but still.
The diaries of the German torpedo boat squadrons survive, I doubt there will be anything like that in them though.
Perhaps they posted them in the generic "Warships" folder instead of opening a separate AAR one.
Quote from: Maladict on July 19, 2021, 06:39:45 AM
Quote from: The Brain on July 19, 2021, 02:55:12 AM
What did the AARs of the two sides say about how happy or not they were with the outcome? I assume that the British AAR survives, but does the German? I know that an AAR might not talk that much about grand strategy considerations, but still.
The diaries of the German torpedo boat squadrons survive, I doubt there will be anything like that in them though.
What's the general status of the Imperial German navy archives? Did they survive WW2?
A lot of imperial navy records were bombed in WWII.
Fucking WW2. :(
Quote from: The Brain on July 19, 2021, 02:55:12 AM
What did the AARs of the two sides say about how happy or not they were with the outcome? I assume that the British AAR survives, but does the German? I know that an AAR might not talk that much about grand strategy considerations, but still.
You don't really need to go to an AAR - you can just see what Scheer actually did once he realized that he had not successfully managed to engage just a portion of the Grand Fleet, but rather his main fleet was up against the british main fleet - he fled. He was not dumb, and he knew that absent him successfully getting away, the HSF was doomed the next morning.
From the moment he realized the reality of the situation, his goal was to save his ships and get them back to port, and get out of this fight as quickly as he could, and that is exactly what he did, aided by some incredible luck and really astoundingly poor British communication.
This was never a fight the Germans wanted, but was definitely a fight the Brits were happy to have, because there was very, very little chance they would lose, having a roughly 50% larger fleet. And being able to read the German codes sure didn't hurt. I mean, hell - the entire war up to that point from the side of the British admirals revolved around "How do we bait the HSF to come out and fight us?" and from the German admirals it was "How do we take the entire HSF out and engage just a portion of the GF so we can get an even fight later?"
The outcome was about as good as the Germans could have hoped for under the circumstances - a clash of the both fleets, but it was not a fight the Germans wanted, and for good reason - they had no chance of winning it. If they had even an outside chance, they *should* have taken that fight, since winning it would be strategically devastating to the British, while losing it would be poliically devastating to the Germans, but actually strategically not really worse then just not fighting it.
But as some American naval officer put it "The prisoner tried to break out of jail, punched the jailer in the face, and then ran back to his cell".
After it was all over, the balance between the fleets was still heavily in the Brits favor (and massively so while they repaired the nearly destroyed German BC squadron and the damage to Konig and the BBs that were under fire), the blockade of Germany was still on, and the Kriegsmarine basically decided that there was no chance of changing that through any kind of surface action - Scheer said after a couple more attempts where the HSF went out but never was convinced they were not going to be pounced on by the combined GF, that there was no way he was going to trick the Brits into engaging him without the entire fleet, and he could not defeat the entire fleet.
That led to them basically letting the HSF rust while they focused on unrestricted submarine warfare, which of course led to the US entry into the war, etc., etc.
Jutland was a disaster for the Germans, but it was really just making clear a reality that had been true all along. Building a surface fleet that was *almost* able to match the British navy was a huge mistake.
Quote from: Berkut on July 18, 2021, 09:27:34 PM
I think focusing on "sinkings" is a bit misleading as well.
(snip)
By the time the damage from Jutland was repaired and the scouting squadron able to sail as a unit again, the Brits were easily able to make up for the loss of their three battlecruisers.
The Germans set out to change the ratio of ships. They failed to do so, and the blockade continued.
Both sides went into the battle in order to inflict losses on the other side, so saying "focusing on "sinkings" is a bit misleading" seems... a bit misleading. The British never made up for the loses of the battlecruisers (they added two more during the war, but not a third). Given that both sides went into the battle of Jutland with the intention of sinking enemy ships, focusing on success in sinking enemy ships seems perfectly leading.
Again, the question is not whether the UK or Germany won WW1, but whether either, neither, or both accomplished their aims in any significant degree at Jutland. You could argue for neither, but I don't think that you can argue that the British accomplished what they wanted to at Jutland. They could have gotten the outcome they historically got by staying at anchor. You can make a tiny case for the HSF, in that they wanted to pummel a portion of the GF, and did so (though not to the extent that they desired).
Not that it greatly matters. The chances that any single action would have had a significant impact on the outcome on the war were very tiny, and neither side had a plan that would do that.
Quote from: The Brain on July 19, 2021, 02:55:12 AM
What did the AARs of the two sides say about how happy or not they were with the outcome? I assume that the British AAR survives, but does the German? I know that an AAR might not talk that much about grand strategy considerations, but still.
The Germans were happy with the outcome, the British were not. The Germans afterwards tried to repeat the recipe, but the British wouldn't come out and play.
The Germans were never NOT going to run away before the battle they wanted ended with the GF showing up, so the argument that the British won the battle because the Germans retreated isn't an argument either side used.
In a strategic sense, the Germans couldn't win, of course. The distant blockade strategy placed the elements of the RN that were actually hurting Germany out of the reach of the HSF.
Quote from: grumbler on July 19, 2021, 09:38:10 AM
The Germans were never NOT going to run away before the battle they wanted ended with the GF showing up, so the argument that the British won the battle because the Germans retreated isn't an argument either side used.
Quote from: Arthur Balfour, First Lord of the Admiralty
"It is not customary for the victor to run away"
It was very much an argument the side that did not run away used.
Quote from: grumbler on July 19, 2021, 09:38:10 AM
The Germans were happy with the outcome, the British were not. The Germans afterwards tried to repeat the recipe, but the British wouldn't come out and play.
The Brits most certainly DID come out to play - the Grand Fleet sailed when the HSF came out again, and when Scheer found out it was out, he, again, turned around and went back home - and pretty much stopped trying.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_of_19_August_1916
Do you mean they would not come out to play in that they would not agree to fight the entire HSF with just part of the GF?
The HSF came out once more, and the GF raised steam to intercept if needed, but the Germans went home after being attacked by submarines.
QuoteFrom 18 to 19 October, Scheer led a brief sortie into the North Sea which British intelligence gave advance warning; the Grand Fleet declined to prepare an ambush, staying in port with steam raised, ready to sail. The German sortie was abandoned after a few hours when SMS München was hit by a torpedo fired by E38 (Lieutenant-Commander J. de B. Jessop) and it was feared other submarines might be in the area. Scheer suffered further difficulties when in November he sailed with Moltke and a division of dreadnoughts to rescue U-20 and U-30, which had become stranded on the Danish coast. British submarine J1 (Commander Noel Laurence) managed to hit the battleships Grosser Kurfürst and Kronprinz. The failure of these operations reinforced the belief, created at Jutland, that the risks were too great for such tactics, because of the danger from submarines and mines.[12]
The Brits after Jutland were perfectly happy to have a repeat engagement, as long as they could do so on the terms they wanted all along - a fleet on fleet engagement that would be very, very likely to win. The Germans wanted the same thing THEY wanted all along - to bait some significant portion into a fight where they could use their entire fleet against some fraction of the British fleet, and wipe it out such that the overall balance would allow them to fight that battle that the Brits wanted on more even terms, and potentially break the British blockade.
We probably agree that neither side was really going to get what they wanted. The Brits were too careful to let the HSF engage a portion of their fleet without backup from the rest, and the Germans knew doing anything else would be suicide.
BTW, we are mostly arguing about nothing - I don't even mind the basic claim that Jutland was in fact a minor tactical loss for the Brits, just based on actual losses.
I just don't think there is a credible argument to be made that it was anything other then a very minor tactical loss, and a significant strategic setback for the Germans - at least insofar as it kind of put a definitive answer to the question they probably already knew but was kind of left to proving.
The Germans definitely won the propaganda part of it though, but I think the professionals on both sides knew the reality.
It was actually an American newspaper that made the comment about the jailer and jails...
Quote from: Tamas on July 19, 2021, 06:41:54 AM
Perhaps they posted them in the generic "Warships" folder instead of opening a separate AAR one.
:lol:
Quote from: Berkut on July 19, 2021, 10:00:51 AM
Quote from: grumbler on July 19, 2021, 09:38:10 AM
The Germans were never NOT going to run away before the battle they wanted ended with the GF showing up, so the argument that the British won the battle because the Germans retreated isn't an argument either side used.
Quote from: Arthur Balfour, First Lord of the Admiralty
"It is not customary for the victor to run away"
It was very much an argument the side that did not run away used.
The position of First Lord of the Admiralty is British, not German. The First Lord is not able to speak for the Germans.
And it is a moronic statement to begin with. The Japanese "ran away" after Pearl Harbor, but no one claims the US was the victor in that battle.
You said it was not an argument "either side" used. That is wrong - it is most certainly an argument that one of the sides used.
And nobody claims that the Japanese ran away after Pearl harbour, and THAT is an argument that neither side used, because it was a raid.
And plenty of people have in fact pointed out that the Japanese victory at PH was considerably less complete then it could have been had they stuck around and hit again, targeting the repair and fueling facilities, for example.
But I think the damage disparity at PH was rather different then Jutland, the goals of the Japanese were different, and the goals of the Americans were different. And again, I've never heard anyone characterize the Japanese retreat back to Japan as "running away", so I am not sure how that is relevant.
The Germans, most certainly, ran away. Their actions the night of the battle were entirely about trying to make sure that the battle was not rejoined the next morning, because they knew the outcomes would be very, very bad for them.
Quote from: grumbler on July 19, 2021, 09:32:35 AM
Both sides went into the battle in order to inflict losses on the other side, so saying "focusing on "sinkings" is a bit misleading" seems... a bit misleading. The British never made up for the loses of the battlecruisers (they added two more during the war, but not a third). Given that both sides went into the battle of Jutland with the intention of sinking enemy ships, focusing on success in sinking enemy ships seems perfectly leading.
The focus on force ratios and attrition reminds me of McNamara and the Vietnam War. To be clear - I am not saying the two situations are properly analogous - they aren't. But it does illustrate why focusing on the particular objectives of the respective commanders at the time is analytically incomplete. The US military did a pretty decent job of achieving the desired attrition levels and ratios and still lost the war.
The British had the ability to construct more capital ships if they felt the need; they didn't and so put those resources elsewhere. I suppose that goes more to point out the problems with the entire strategic conception and the waste of resources involved in constructing the High Seas Fleet in the first place, as opposed to the conduct or outcome of any specific battle. But the point is that the strategic purpose of the Grand Fleet was to contain the High Seas Fleet and prevent it from threatening either the blockade or Britain's own sea lines of communication. From that perspective, the outcome of Jutland looks good for Britain and bad for Germany,
Quote from: Berkut on July 19, 2021, 10:13:44 AM
The Brits most certainly DID come out to play - the Grand Fleet sailed when the HSF came out again, and when Scheer found out it was out, he, again, turned around and went back home - and pretty much stopped trying.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_of_19_August_1916
Do you mean they would not come out to play in that they would not agree to fight the entire HSF with just part of the GF?
The HSF came out once more, and the GF raised steam to intercept if needed, but the Germans went home after being attacked by submarines.
QuoteFrom 18 to 19 October, Scheer led a brief sortie into the North Sea which British intelligence gave advance warning; the Grand Fleet declined to prepare an ambush, staying in port with steam raised, ready to sail. The German sortie was abandoned after a few hours when SMS München was hit by a torpedo fired by E38 (Lieutenant-Commander J. de B. Jessop) and it was feared other submarines might be in the area. Scheer suffered further difficulties when in November he sailed with Moltke and a division of dreadnoughts to rescue U-20 and U-30, which had become stranded on the Danish coast. British submarine J1 (Commander Noel Laurence) managed to hit the battleships Grosser Kurfürst and Kronprinz. The failure of these operations reinforced the belief, created at Jutland, that the risks were too great for such tactics, because of the danger from submarines and mines.[12]
The Brits after Jutland were perfectly happy to have a repeat engagement, as long as they could do so on the terms they wanted all along - a fleet on fleet engagement that would be very, very likely to win. The Germans wanted the same thing THEY wanted all along - to bait some significant portion into a fight where they could use their entire fleet against some fraction of the British fleet, and wipe it out such that the overall balance would allow them to fight that battle that the Brits wanted on more even terms, and potentially break the British blockade.
We probably agree that neither side was really going to get what they wanted. The Brits were too careful to let the HSF engage a portion of their fleet without backup from the rest, and the Germans knew doing anything else would be suicide.
The British stopped sending their ships into the southern North Sea for fear of submarines (and the Germans eventually did the same).
The claim that the Germans didn't seek a fleet action after Jutland is false. That was my only point. They didn't want to fight the entire GF at once, but that was as true before the battle as after.
I didn't make the claim that the Germans did not seek a fleet action, just disputed the implication that the Brits were "unwilling to play". They were certainly very willing to play.
Quote from: Berkut on July 19, 2021, 11:12:26 AM
You said it was not an argument "either side" used. That is wrong - it is most certainly an argument that one of the sides used.
And nobody claims that the Japanese ran away after Pearl harbour, and THAT is an argument that neither side used, because it was a raid.
And plenty of people have in fact pointed out that the Japanese victory at PH was considerably less complete then it could have been had they stuck around and hit again, targeting the repair and fueling facilities, for example.
But I think the damage disparity at PH was rather different then Jutland, the goals of the Japanese were different, and the goals of the Americans were different. And again, I've never heard anyone characterize the Japanese retreat back to Japan as "running away", so I am not sure how that is relevant.
The Germans, most certainly, ran away. Their actions the night of the battle were entirely about trying to make sure that the battle was not rejoined the next morning, because they knew the outcomes would be very, very bad for them.
Balfour claimed that the British won because the Germans didn't break the British blockade https://www.newspapers.com/clip/35367740/british-first-lord-of-the-admiralty/ (https://www.newspapers.com/clip/35367740/british-first-lord-of-the-admiralty/). He doesn't mention a belief that the British won because the Germans retreated (as planned).
You have here created a new distinction that isn't logically very clear: the Japanese didn't "run away" because their operation was "a raid" and so planned to retreat, but the Germans did "run away" because their operation was not called a raid but still planned to retreat. What is the distinction you are drawing between the two hit-and-run plans?
The repetition of the argument that the Germans retreated so they couldn't have won (in fact, it is an argument that they never planned to win) seems to me a mere attempt at argument by assertion. Did the Japanese lose at Savo Island because they "ran away" after the battle? Did the fact that Taffy 3 was trying to "run away" at the battle of Samar mean that the Japanese won that battle? The Germans "ran away" after sinking the carrier HMS
Glorious and 2 destroyers. Did they lose that engagement, in your opinion?
The Germans retreated on the night of Jutland because they'd always planned to withdraw when the whole GF showed up. Any other plan would have been foolish. It is pretty clear, though, that they didn't think that they could never succeed in fighting the GF under any circumstances, even though they would have to 'run away" under all circumstances. Which side "runs away" is not a good measure of victory at sea.
The German objective was to catch a small part of the Grand Fleet and destroy it in detail. They failed to achieve that objective.
The British objective was to maintain the blockade, they succeeded with that objective.
That the Germans caused more casualties is neither here nor there, they failed in their objective and the Brits did not.
And a minor quibble. It's Jellicoe, not Jellico. And if you start to discuss carriers they have hangars, the sailors onboard have hangers.
Edit: And I'm on a phone, any misspellings is caused by that. ;)
Quote from: grumbler on July 19, 2021, 11:41:35 AM
Quote from: Berkut on July 19, 2021, 11:12:26 AM
You said it was not an argument "either side" used. That is wrong - it is most certainly an argument that one of the sides used.
And nobody claims that the Japanese ran away after Pearl harbour, and THAT is an argument that neither side used, because it was a raid.
And plenty of people have in fact pointed out that the Japanese victory at PH was considerably less complete then it could have been had they stuck around and hit again, targeting the repair and fueling facilities, for example.
But I think the damage disparity at PH was rather different then Jutland, the goals of the Japanese were different, and the goals of the Americans were different. And again, I've never heard anyone characterize the Japanese retreat back to Japan as "running away", so I am not sure how that is relevant.
The Germans, most certainly, ran away. Their actions the night of the battle were entirely about trying to make sure that the battle was not rejoined the next morning, because they knew the outcomes would be very, very bad for them.
Balfour claimed that the British won because the Germans didn't break the British blockade https://www.newspapers.com/clip/35367740/british-first-lord-of-the-admiralty/ (https://www.newspapers.com/clip/35367740/british-first-lord-of-the-admiralty/). He doesn't mention a belief that the British won because the Germans retreated (as planned).
You claimed that neither side made that argument. That is not true.
It may not be a good argument (I don't agree that it isn't, under the circumstances of THIS battle), but the claim was that neither side made the argument, which, again, is not true. The allies did in fact make that argument.
Quote from: grumbler on July 19, 2021, 11:41:35 AM
Quote from: Berkut on July 19, 2021, 11:12:26 AM
You said it was not an argument "either side" used. That is wrong - it is most certainly an argument that one of the sides used.
And nobody claims that the Japanese ran away after Pearl harbour, and THAT is an argument that neither side used, because it was a raid.
And plenty of people have in fact pointed out that the Japanese victory at PH was considerably less complete then it could have been had they stuck around and hit again, targeting the repair and fueling facilities, for example.
But I think the damage disparity at PH was rather different then Jutland, the goals of the Japanese were different, and the goals of the Americans were different. And again, I've never heard anyone characterize the Japanese retreat back to Japan as "running away", so I am not sure how that is relevant.
The Germans, most certainly, ran away. Their actions the night of the battle were entirely about trying to make sure that the battle was not rejoined the next morning, because they knew the outcomes would be very, very bad for them.
You have here created a new distinction that isn't logically very clear: the Japanese didn't "run away" because their operation was "a raid" and so planned to retreat, but the Germans did "run away" because their operation was not called a raid but still planned to retreat. What is the distinction you are drawing between the two hit-and-run plans?
In the one case, the Japanese came, they achieved what they set out to do, then they left because there was no reason to stick around. Same with Savo Island.
The Germans came, they failed to achieve what they set out to do, then they ran away when they realized that they had failed and could not succeed. They did not leave because they had done what they came to do.
Hence the very basic observation that their leaving *before they achieved what they set out to do* is a reasonable argument to be made that they in fact lost.
It isn't an iron clad argument, but it isn't ridiculous.
It is also reasonable to note that naval combat is NOT land combat, and siezing ground is not the point, and hence who is left in control of the battlefield isn't really nearly as important as it might sound.
Hell, a better example if you want to go to the extreme is noting that the Americans probably won the battle of Hiroshima, even though the Enola Gay left the battlefield.
Quote from: Threviel on July 19, 2021, 12:02:04 PM
The German objective was to catch a small part of the Grand Fleet and destroy it in detail. They failed to achieve that objective.
The British objective was to maintain the blockade, they succeeded with that objective.
That the Germans caused more casualties is neither here nor there, they failed in their objective and the Brits did not.
If the only British objective was to maintain the blockade, the Grand Fleet would have stayed in port. The British went to sea to decisively defeat the HSF and free up British naval resources for other uses.
So, the British failed in their objective, and the Germans in theirs.
Quote from: Berkut on July 19, 2021, 12:39:12 PM
You claimed that neither side made that argument. That is not true.
It may not be a good argument (I don't agree that it isn't, under the circumstances of THIS battle), but the claim was that neither side made the argument, which, again, is not true. The allies did in fact make that argument.
My claim is that no one (of any significance to historians, anyway) made the claim that the RN won Jutland just because the Germans withdrew first. The Germans were always going to withdraw first, and everyone knew it.
Quote from: Berkut on July 19, 2021, 12:49:44 PM
In the one case, the Japanese came, they achieved what they set out to do, then they left because there was no reason to stick around. Same with Savo Island.
The Germans came, they failed to achieve what they set out to do, then they ran away when they realized that they had failed and could not succeed. They did not leave because they had done what they came to do.
Hence the very basic observation that their leaving *before they achieved what they set out to do* is a reasonable argument to be made that they in fact lost.
It isn't an iron clad argument, but it isn't ridiculous.
It is also reasonable to note that naval combat is NOT land combat, and siezing ground is not the point, and hence who is left in control of the battlefield isn't really nearly as important as it might sound.
Hell, a better example if you want to go to the extreme is noting that the Americans probably won the battle of Hiroshima, even though the Enola Gay left the battlefield.
The Japanese at Savo actually failed to accomplish what they set out to do; they sank none of the transports or assault cargo ships off Guadalcanal, which were their target. So, "the very basic observation that their leaving *before they achieved what they set out to do* is a reasonable argument to be made that they in fact lost" applies, if it is, in fact, true. I don't think that anyone would agree in the case of Savo Island, though.
Which side left first isn't a signifier in naval combat, any more than it is in aerial combat.
Quote from: grumbler on July 19, 2021, 01:52:07 PM
Quote from: Threviel on July 19, 2021, 12:02:04 PM
The German objective was to catch a small part of the Grand Fleet and destroy it in detail. They failed to achieve that objective.
The British objective was to maintain the blockade, they succeeded with that objective.
That the Germans caused more casualties is neither here nor there, they failed in their objective and the Brits did not.
If the only British objective was to maintain the blockade, the Grand Fleet would have stayed in port. The British went to sea to decisively defeat the HSF and free up British naval resources for other uses.
So, the British failed in their objective, and the Germans in theirs.
The British strike me as delusional then. Did they really think they could blow away the entire HSF in one engagement? Surely at the distances that ship combat occurred in this era as soon as the Germans started taking losses everybody knew they would steam away.
The British were supposed to be these great seaman, did they really think such an unlikely thing was a realistic possibility?
Quote from: Valmy on July 19, 2021, 02:03:19 PM
Quote from: grumbler on July 19, 2021, 01:52:07 PM
Quote from: Threviel on July 19, 2021, 12:02:04 PM
The German objective was to catch a small part of the Grand Fleet and destroy it in detail. They failed to achieve that objective.
The British objective was to maintain the blockade, they succeeded with that objective.
That the Germans caused more casualties is neither here nor there, they failed in their objective and the Brits did not.
If the only British objective was to maintain the blockade, the Grand Fleet would have stayed in port. The British went to sea to decisively defeat the HSF and free up British naval resources for other uses.
So, the British failed in their objective, and the Germans in theirs.
The British strike me as delusional then. Did they really think they could blow away the entire HSF in one engagement? Surely at the distances that ship combat occurred in this era as soon as the Germans started taking losses everybody knew they would steam away.
The British were supposed to be these great seaman, did they really think such an unlikely thing was a realistic possibility?
The Nelson of the Pacific pulled off a battle of annihilation just a few years before. Granted, circumstances were hardly identical...
Quote from: Valmy on July 19, 2021, 02:03:19 PM
The British strike me as delusional then. Did they really think they could blow away the entire HSF in one engagement? Surely at the distances that ship combat occurred in this era as soon as the Germans started taking losses everybody knew they would steam away.
The British were supposed to be these great seaman, did they really think such an unlikely thing was a realistic possibility?
Well, yes, they did expect such a thing to be possible. Tsushima had only been eleven years in the past, and it was just such a decisive victory.
Of course, the GF didn't need to "blow away the entire HSF in one engagement" to win a decisive victory, just smash enough of it that the rest could be contained by a fraction of the Grand Fleet, allowing the rest of the GF to be used in the Med, against submarines, and in trade protection.
The Germans would steam away from any encounter with the entire GF, but steaming away isn't the same as getting away. If the Germans steamed away at each squadron's best speed, the slower 2/3 of the HSF would be gobbled up piecemeal. And if the HSF stayed together, it could only retreat at the speed of its slowest ship, which would mean its destruction.
I don't think that it was unreasonable to suppose that it might be possible to achieve such a decisive victory, but the fleet commanders knew very well that it was extremely unlikely, given visibility in the North Sea and the virtual requirement that an engagement take place in the late afternoon, after the fleets steamed and maneuvered all day.
Quote from: grumbler on July 19, 2021, 01:52:07 PM
Quote from: Threviel on July 19, 2021, 12:02:04 PM
The German objective was to catch a small part of the Grand Fleet and destroy it in detail. They failed to achieve that objective.
The British objective was to maintain the blockade, they succeeded with that objective.
That the Germans caused more casualties is neither here nor there, they failed in their objective and the Brits did not.
If the only British objective was to maintain the blockade, the Grand Fleet would have stayed in port. The British went to sea to decisively defeat the HSF and free up British naval resources for other uses.
So, the British failed in their objective, and the Germans in theirs.
For neither was it the only objective. The British primary objective was to maintain the blockade. Secondary to that was the destruction of the HSF. The secondary objective was obviously not worth it to risk the primary.
If Jellicoe had been ordered to destroy the HSF at all costs he would not have turned away from the destroyer attack. But he was not ordered to do that.
It was also not the habit of the RN to hide in harbour.
Quote from: Threviel on July 19, 2021, 03:20:31 PM
For neither was it the only objective. The British primary objective was to maintain the blockade. Secondary to that was the destruction of the HSF. The secondary objective was obviously not worth it to risk the primary.
If Jellicoe had been ordered to destroy the HSF at all costs he would not have turned away from the destroyer attack. But he was not ordered to do that.
It was also not the habit of the RN to hide in harbour.
Are you making a point here?
The Grand Fleet had nothing directly to do with the blockade. The blockade was carried out by the Dover patrol and the Northern Patrol. The Grand Fleet existed to counter the High Seas Fleet, not to blockade Germany. If neither the Grand Fleet nor the High Seas Fleet existed (e.g. wiped each other out entirely), the blockade would have been unaffected
Quote from: grumbler on July 19, 2021, 01:52:07 PM
Quote from: Threviel on July 19, 2021, 12:02:04 PM
The German objective was to catch a small part of the Grand Fleet and destroy it in detail. They failed to achieve that objective.
The British objective was to maintain the blockade, they succeeded with that objective.
That the Germans caused more casualties is neither here nor there, they failed in their objective and the Brits did not.
If the only British objective was to maintain the blockade, the Grand Fleet would have stayed in port. The British went to sea to decisively defeat the HSF and free up British naval resources for other uses.
So, the British failed in their objective, and the Germans in theirs.
Also Grumbsy, you've forgotten more about this shit than any us have ever learned. Stop being a contrariaran nitpicker and try instead to expand on our badly thought out thinkings. We all love to read your in depth, well written texts. I for one really appreciate when you show the holes in my thinking, but please do stop with the anal nitpicking shit. You provably knew full well that my post in no way was an attempt to fully explain all objectives of the combatants. If you didn't then please ignore this.
Quote from: grumbler on July 19, 2021, 03:38:36 PM
Quote from: Threviel on July 19, 2021, 03:20:31 PM
For neither was it the only objective. The British primary objective was to maintain the blockade. Secondary to that was the destruction of the HSF. The secondary objective was obviously not worth it to risk the primary.
If Jellicoe had been ordered to destroy the HSF at all costs he would not have turned away from the destroyer attack. But he was not ordered to do that.
It was also not the habit of the RN to hide in harbour.
Are you making a point here?
The Grand Fleet had nothing directly to do with the blockade. The blockade was carried out by the Dover patrol and the Northern Patrol. The Grand Fleet existed to counter the High Seas Fleet, not to blockade Germany. If neither the Grand Fleet nor the High Seas Fleet existed (e.g. wiped each other out entirely), the blockade would have been unaffected
Ohh, FFS, stop it. The Grand Fleet was the anchor of the whole thing, without it the blockade wouldn't last a week. Everything was about the blockade.
But what if martians intervened? Well, fuck it, call the department of silly what-ifs and check.
Quote from: Threviel on July 19, 2021, 03:46:54 PM
Ohh, FFS, stop it. The Grand Fleet was the anchor of the whole thing, without it the blockade wouldn't last a week. Everything was about the blockade.
But what if martians intervened? Well, fuck it, call the department of silly what-ifs and check.
:huh: Berkut started a thread to invite a discussion the battle of Jutland. I am discussing the Battle of Jutland.
Board discussions consist of two kids of posts:
1. An argument, supported by evidence and analysis, or
2. A counter-argument challenging either the evidence part of the argument, or the analysis part of the argument.
Posts that complain that argument supported by analysis is just "being a contrariaran nitpicker" aren't counter-arguments. Calls in response to argument to "FFS, stop it" aren't counter-arguments. Arguments by assertion aren't arguments, either.
I see no reason why you are going all personal attack mode here. this is just a discussion. If you don't agree with my arguments, that's fine. As I have said several times, you could easily argue that neither side won Jutland. What you can't argue in the spirit of the thread is the hindsight argument that the Allies were going to win the war anyway, so anything that was not a decisive German victory was a British victory. Had the Germans broken the lines in the Ludendorff Offensive and forced a white peace, the blockade would have turned out to not be decisive after all. If you are going to discuss "who won the Battle of Jutland" in any sort of interesting way, you are going to need to dump the idea that yours is only correct answer and any ideas contrary to your are due to "contrarianism."
Thought experiments have value to most of the audience here. If my thought experiment is over your head and you think it the equivalent of "Martians," that's on you.
Quote from: grumbler on July 19, 2021, 03:13:57 PM
Quote from: Valmy on July 19, 2021, 02:03:19 PM
The British strike me as delusional then. Did they really think they could blow away the entire HSF in one engagement? Surely at the distances that ship combat occurred in this era as soon as the Germans started taking losses everybody knew they would steam away.
The British were supposed to be these great seaman, did they really think such an unlikely thing was a realistic possibility?
Well, yes, they did expect such a thing to be possible. Tsushima had only been eleven years in the past, and it was just such a decisive victory.
Of course, the GF didn't need to "blow away the entire HSF in one engagement" to win a decisive victory, just smash enough of it that the rest could be contained by a fraction of the Grand Fleet, allowing the rest of the GF to be used in the Med, against submarines, and in trade protection.
The Germans would steam away from any encounter with the entire GF, but steaming away isn't the same as getting away. If the Germans steamed away at each squadron's best speed, the slower 2/3 of the HSF would be gobbled up piecemeal. And if the HSF stayed together, it could only retreat at the speed of its slowest ship, which would mean its destruction.
I don't think that it was unreasonable to suppose that it might be possible to achieve such a decisive victory, but the fleet commanders knew very well that it was extremely unlikely, given visibility in the North Sea and the virtual requirement that an engagement take place in the late afternoon, after the fleets steamed and maneuvered all day.
The actual battle of Jutland was very close to it being actually what happened.
When the HSF steamed away as it got dark, Scheer had a bit of a problem. The GF was between him and his ports. And "nigth" at that lattitude at that time of year was something like.....4 hours. The sun would come up at around 3am.
He had a couple options on where to go, and Jellicoe thought he would try to run south and get around the GF, and deployed appropriately - Jellicoe had no desire for a night action, correctly surmising that the Germans were better at it.
Scheer actually decided to go north and cross the GF's wake. This was, well....pretty damn risky. But it made sense.
Jellicoe thought all that fighting and such was just his screen fighting off the expected nighttime attack from the German light forces trying to get at the battleships at night to try to even the odds for the next days fighting. The Admirality had also gotten some radio intel with Scheers intended course, but they either passed it along along with a bunch of contradictory stuff, or simply did not pass it along at all.
In any case, had
A) The Brits realized what was happening, and turned back north (which was probably the likely course of events absent like three different bizarre things happening, or
B) Scheer decided to run south instead of crossing back north
The outcome of Jutland very likely would have been a decisive British victory with enough of the HSF destroyed that it was no longer a threat to the GF.
Again, that is the *likely* outcome. But likely things don't always happen, they just happen more often then not.
The stories of that nights fighting is just kind of bizarre:
QuoteThe most powerful British ships of all (the 15-inch-guns of the 5th Battle Squadron) directly observed German battleships crossing astern of them in action with British light forces, at ranges of 3 mi (2.6 nmi; 4.8 km) or less, and gunners on HMS Malaya made ready to fire, but her captain declined, deferring to the authority of Rear-Admiral Evan-Thomas – and neither commander reported the sightings to Jellicoe, assuming that he could see for himself and that revealing the fleet's position by radio signals or gunfire was unwise.
I mean....wtf? That just seems so....not British. So not Nelson. You have a target under your guns, your are loaded and ready to fire and you do not because....why exactly? Nobody ordered you to fire? Since when does a British ship need an order to blow an enemy ship out of the water!
Another bizarre story from that nights fighting:
QuoteJust after midnight on 1 June, SMS Thüringen and other German battleships sank Black Prince of the ill-fated 1st Cruiser Squadron, which had blundered into the German battle line. Deployed as part of a screening force several miles ahead of the main force of the Grand Fleet, Black Prince had lost contact in the darkness and took a position near what she thought was the British line. The Germans soon identified the new addition to their line and opened fire. Overwhelmed by point-blank gunfire, Black Prince blew up, (all hands – 857 officers and men – were lost), as her squadron leader Defence had done hours earlier.Lost in the darkness, the battlecruisers Moltke and Seydlitz had similar point-blank encounters with the British battle line and were recognised, but were spared the fate of Black Prince when the captains of the British ships, again, declined to open fire, reluctant to reveal their fleet's position.
So two different little mini stories.
In one, a British armored cruiser, thinking the German line is their ships, sails under its guns, is identified by the Germans and promptly blown away.
WHOOPSIE!
In the second, two badly damaged German battlecruisers do the same things, and THEY are identified by the Brits, but allowed to slink away, because the Brits don't want to reveal the positions of the fleet.
What is bizarre about this is that it is the GERMANS who are trying to conceal what they are doing, not the British!
Shit be crazy.
Jellicoe was harshly criticized for taking a nap on the bridge of Iron Duke as the sun set, and his staff even more so for not waking him up when they realized something was happening astern. I'm not sure when the exact moment was that the British lost the chance to cut off the Germans from the Horn Reef, but their failure to communicate clearly what was happening was a constant in that battle. Again, The Rules of the Game discusses why Gordon thought this had happened.
The Germans had all the luck in the battle, for sure. Even so, they naver had a chance to accomplish their mission, while the British had the chance but muffed it.
The costs of passivity was a lesson that was learned well, however. In WW2, the RN was aggressive as all hell, and mostly benefitted from it. The loss of Prince of Wales and Repulse is the only downside I can think of. Even there, though, it was unthinkable that the Navy not support the Army in its hour of need.
Enjoyed reading this thread. :)
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on July 18, 2021, 04:09:09 PM
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.
The armoured cruiser (of which the battlecruiser was an evolution) had actually come back into vogue in the battleline as a result of the extensive use that the Japanese made of them, most notably at Tsushima. So there was a strong argument that using the cruisers with the battleline could produce great results. Unfortunately, the enormous improvements of the dreadnought era exacerbated the vulnerabilities of the cruisers, and they ended up performing quite poorly in the war against heavier opposition.
Quote from: Berkut on July 19, 2021, 04:57:18 PM
The outcome of Jutland very likely would have been a decisive British victory with enough of the HSF destroyed that it was no longer a threat to the GF.
The really interesting thing to think about is this: Would that have mattered?
If Jellicoe crosses Scheer's T off Horns Reef at 4am on a second Glorious First of June and annihilates him, what effects does that have?
Jellicoe becomes a national hero, and possibly a marquess rather than an earl, although if he becomes First Sea Lord and bungles the response to the submarine menace, that might take off some of the shine. Still, he probably wouldn't have been shuffled off to be the Governor General of New Zealand after the war. No matter how much the Northcliffe papers hated him, you can't hide the greatest hero Britain has had since Nelson, although I don't think that Jellicoe had it in him to be another Wellington.
Beatty still likely becomes C-in-C in succession to Jellicoe at some point, although Jellicoe's prestige will make it impossible to bury him. Really, there wasn't any other practical candidate apart from Sturdee, who Jellicoe trusted even less than Beatty. Madden was still too junior.
Now, does the British command of the sea allow them to intervene against the submarine bases? Probably not. Shore-based artillery, torpedoes and minefields will be able to keep the British from engaging in any kind of close blockade. They would have a lot more freedom in deploying their own anti-submarine minefields, which will interfere with submarine operations and increase losses, but they'll still get through and the British resistance to convoys will still become a problem.
Because of the land-based weapons and minefields, it'd be very unlikely that Britain would discard the battlefleet by trying to throw it into the Baltic.
However, you have all that manpower on a battlefleet that is suddenly far larger than it needs to be. There would be a lot of pressure to create a 'naval division', whether to serve on the Western Front or to create the manpower for one of Lloyd George's sideshows.
Interestingly, a decisive victory for the British at Jutland might slightly delay the end of the war, as it was poorly-treated German sailors of the battlefleet (as opposed to the much better conditions on the submarines) who provided the initial spark to the German Revolution, and they can't do that if they're all drowned or captured. It probably wouldn't make a difference in the end, but history would be a little different.
Indeed - that is why I argued that the actual result was a pretty decisive British victory, in that the difference between what DID happen and what would have likely happened had Jellicoe blown away the HSF in some glorious battle was not really all that different.
The HSF took their shot, but they failed. It was never a particularly good or likely shot, but one they probably had to take at some point since they strategic initiative was with the allies at sea, and they were content with the status quo (since it meant they were likely to win).
I would say 'clear' British victory, not 'decisive'. Jutland really didn't decide anything. To quote the papers of the time 'The German fleet assaulted their jailor, but they remain in jail'.
There might have been better times for the German fleet to try, especially earlier in the war, when the odds weren't quite so much against them. But yeah, if you're commanding the German fleet in 1916, the best time to try and move against the British was yesterday, and the second best time is today. The odds only get longer as the war goes on.
As long as the Brits always looked at any developing situation as "Yeah, thats a fucking trap!" the Germans were very unlikely to pull off what they had to pull off to make a go of it.
Plus, since the Brits were reading the Germans mail as well....yeah, they were pretty much fucked regardless.
Quote from: Berkut on August 06, 2021, 02:18:56 PM
Indeed - that is why I argued that the actual result was a pretty decisive British victory, in that the difference between what DID happen and what would have likely happened had Jellicoe blown away the HSF in some glorious battle was not really all that different.
The HSF took their shot, but they failed. It was never a particularly good or likely shot, but one they probably had to take at some point since they strategic initiative was with the allies at sea, and they were content with the status quo (since it meant they were likely to win).
It's peculiar to hear someone argue that a battle was "pretty decisive" because it didn't matter! :lol:
The British would have accomplished the same result with less loss by staying in port.
If "decisive" means a battle whose outcome decides some matter of strategic significance, then it was decisive in the sense that it effectively resolved the question of whether the High Seas Fleet posed a meaningful strategic threat to Britain's command of the North Sea.
Staying in port was not a realistic option as at some point questions could be raised why German battleships were being permitted to go anywhere they wished, shell British coastal cities, etc. without any response.
Was the question actually 'resolved' in any sense though? The situation before and after the battle was the same. The German fleet had attempted to bite off a chunk of the Grand Fleet before the battle, and it continued to do so afterwards (although not until it had spent months repairing the damage inflicted by the British). The British professional opinion wasn't that they had settled the question. Indeed, they proceeded to launch inquiries as to why they hadn't performed as well as expected.
Jutland was a victory, but it didn't change the fundamental calculus of the situation.
Jutland was a game best played on Mike's basement floor as there was enough room to turn the whole fleet.
Quote from: PDH on August 06, 2021, 05:58:14 PM
Jutland was a game best played on Mike's basement floor as there was enough room to turn the whole fleet.
We had a terribly large basement, so there was room to play when I was young. Lately, my copy has been sitting in my games closet. My wife was not interested in playing Jutland, or Bismarck, or Midway.
I haven't played Jutland or Bismarck since probably 1984. Shame, really.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 06, 2021, 05:16:36 PM
If "decisive" means a battle whose outcome decides some matter of strategic significance, then it was decisive in the sense that it effectively resolved the question of whether the High Seas Fleet posed a meaningful strategic threat to Britain's command of the North Sea.
Then the British decisive victory came before the war even started, because the question you raise was as thoroughly answered the day before Jutland as the day after it.
QuoteStaying in port was not a realistic option as at some point questions could be raised why German battleships were being permitted to go anywhere they wished, shell British coastal cities, etc. without any response.
If what you are saying is true, then the RN must have had some goal in actually seeking an action with the German fleet, and we can determine "who won" not by whether the blockade continued, but by whether the British or the Germans came closer to accomplishing their goals. That's why I argue that the action was a tactical German victory, because they achieved at least the goal of inflicting disproportionate damage.
Quote from: Neil on August 06, 2021, 03:14:40 PM
I would say 'clear' British victory, not 'decisive'. Jutland really didn't decide anything. To quote the papers of the time 'The German fleet assaulted their jailor, but they remain in jail'.
There might have been better times for the German fleet to try, especially earlier in the war, when the odds weren't quite so much against them. But yeah, if you're commanding the German fleet in 1916, the best time to try and move against the British was yesterday, and the second best time is today. The odds only get longer as the war goes on.
I don't believe that it was a British victory of any type. The hyperbole of the British yellow press isn't evidence of anything. Arguing that the British clearly won because the Germans retreated and the blockade continued is the equivalent of arguing that the Charge of the Light Brigade was a clear British victory because, in its aftermath, the siege of Sevastopol continued.
The Germans came out to inflict disproportionate damage on the Grand fleet, which they accomplished. Not enough to tilt the balance against the Grand Fleet, of course, so it wasn't a decisive German victory, but it was a German victory nonetheless.
The German goal wasn't to reach some casualty force ratio, it was to annihilate a significant portion of the British fleet such that it could no longer maintain effective command of the North Sea. They failed to do that.
Proportionality has to be considered in reference to some outcome of significance. McNamara was content in Vietnam that tactical engagements resulted in a favorable force casualty ratio but that did not yield the strategic results he expected. At Jutland, the Germans may have sunk more raw tonnage and killed more British sailors. But the Germans inflicted damage which Britain could repair and replace and sustained damage they could not.
It's true that the German fleet came out again after Jutland, but they never posed a real threat again - the British knew what they were trying to do and the Germans never came close to contesting control again. How many other military engagements in the Western theater of WW1 can be said to be as decisive? I take (and agree with) grumbler's point that the Germany had arguably failed before they ever sailed out but unexpected things can happen in war. That the odds were against the defeated party doesn't make their defeat less of a defeat. And for the same reason, the fact that the British made inquiries after the battle to address shortcomings doesn't mean it wasn't victory - it means the RN was a sufficiently functional organization to learn from mistakes even in engagements when the outcome was favorable.
Quote from: grumbler on August 06, 2021, 08:30:22 PM
The Germans came out to inflict disproportionate damage on the Grand fleet, which they accomplished.
Did they? They traded Lutzow for Queen Mary. Apart from that, they destroyed a number of older cruisers, but the main losses there were in manpower. And because the German fleet had been so badly mauled in achieving those goals, by the time that they were actually in a position to actually put their fleet back to sea, the Grand Fleet was even stronger (even in battlecruisers) than they had been before Jutland.
The German goal wasn't to 'inflict disproportionate losses'. It was to single out and annihilate an element of the Grand Fleet. While you might say that's the same thing, there's an important distinction in degree. The Germans had lofty ambitions, achieved little, spent a lot to do it and had their efforts essentially erased by new construction and superior British dockyard repairs.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 06, 2021, 09:15:27 PM
The German goal wasn't to reach some casualty force ratio, it was to annihilate a significant portion of the British fleet such that it could no longer maintain effective command of the North Sea. They failed to do that.
Strawman. No one is arguing that then Germans were able to "annihilate a significant portion of the British fleet such that it could no longer maintain effective command of the North Sea."
QuoteProportionality has to be considered in reference to some outcome of significance. McNamara was content in Vietnam that tactical engagements resulted in a favorable force casualty ratio but that did not yield the strategic results he expected. At Jutland, the Germans may have sunk more raw tonnage and killed more British sailors. But the Germans inflicted damage which Britain could repair and replace and sustained damage they could not.
The Germans replaced their non-predread losses, the British did not.
QuoteIt's true that the German fleet came out again after Jutland, but they never posed a real threat again - the British knew what they were trying to do and the Germans never came close to contesting control again. How many other military engagements in the Western theater of WW1 can be said to be as decisive? I take (and agree with) grumbler's point that the Germany had arguably failed before they ever sailed out but unexpected things can happen in war. That the odds were against the defeated party doesn't make their defeat less of a defeat. And for the same reason, the fact that the British made inquiries after the battle to address shortcomings doesn't mean it wasn't victory - it means the RN was a sufficiently functional organization to learn from mistakes even in engagements when the outcome was favorable.
That the British made inquiries after the battle to address shortcomings doesn't mean it wasn't a defeat. That the odds were against the victorious party achieving all of their goals doesn't make their victory less of a victory. See, I can do this argument by assertion thing just like you.
The Germans never came close to contesting control of the North Sea. That wasn't in the cards barring a miracle, and they were as far from contesting control the day before Jutland as the day after. If some miracle could give them control of the North Sea, it could as easily do it on the day after Jutland as on the day before Jutland.
The Battle of Jutland was not decisive in any way. It maintained the status quo. But that status quo would have existed on the absence of a battle, so, if we are going to assess the degree to which a side "won" the battle, we have to do so based on the extent to which each side accomplished what they wanted to accomplish in the battle. On that basis, the Germans won a slight victory.
To argue that the British won is to argue that the Union Army won the Battle of the Crater because, after all, the siege of Petersburg continued and Lee's army never contested control of the eastern Seaboard again. Your argument would fly in the face of the conclusion of every historian of the action, though.
Quote from: Neil on August 06, 2021, 11:24:22 PM
Did they? They traded Lutzow for Queen Mary. Apart from that, they destroyed a number of older cruisers, but the main losses there were in manpower. And because the German fleet had been so badly mauled in achieving those goals, by the time that they were actually in a position to actually put their fleet back to sea, the Grand Fleet was even stronger (even in battlecruisers) than they had been before Jutland.
The German goal wasn't to 'inflict disproportionate losses'. It was to single out and annihilate an element of the Grand Fleet. While you might say that's the same thing, there's an important distinction in degree. The Germans had lofty ambitions, achieved little, spent a lot to do it and had their efforts essentially erased by new construction and superior British dockyard repairs.
The British lost 3 modern capital ships, the Germans one. If the battle had been repeated with the same losses 10 times, the British would be down to 7 capital ships, the Germans 11. The British never replaced their BC loses, the Germans did.
The German goal was not, as you say, to "to single out and annihilate an element of the Grand Fleet" - that was not a realistic goal. Annihilation of a fleet element would have required overwhelming numbers of ships with overwhelmingly superior speed. As you say, there's an important distinction in degree, and claiming that they wanted to "annihilate" fleet elements misses that distinction in order to artificially set the bar for German victory impossibly high.
The British goal was to decisively defeat the High Seas Fleet so as to free up British naval forces for re-deployment elsewhere. They were even further from their goal than the Germans, given the outcome.
Quote from: grumbler on August 07, 2021, 07:07:55 AM
Quote from: Neil on August 06, 2021, 11:24:22 PM
Did they? They traded Lutzow for Queen Mary. Apart from that, they destroyed a number of older cruisers, but the main losses there were in manpower. And because the German fleet had been so badly mauled in achieving those goals, by the time that they were actually in a position to actually put their fleet back to sea, the Grand Fleet was even stronger (even in battlecruisers) than they had been before Jutland.
The German goal wasn't to 'inflict disproportionate losses'. It was to single out and annihilate an element of the Grand Fleet. While you might say that's the same thing, there's an important distinction in degree. The Germans had lofty ambitions, achieved little, spent a lot to do it and had their efforts essentially erased by new construction and superior British dockyard repairs.
The British lost 3 modern capital ships, the Germans one. If the battle had been repeated with the same losses 10 times, the British would be down to 7 capital ships, the Germans 11. The British never replaced their BC loses, the Germans did.
The German goal was not, as you say, to "to single out and annihilate an element of the Grand Fleet" - that was not a realistic goal. Annihilation of a fleet element would have required overwhelming numbers of ships with overwhelmingly superior speed. As you say, there's an important distinction in degree, and claiming that they wanted to "annihilate" fleet elements misses that distinction in order to artificially set the bar for German victory impossibly high.
The British goal was to decisively defeat the High Seas Fleet so as to free up British naval forces for re-deployment elsewhere. They were even further from their goal than the Germans, given the outcome.
Invincible and Indefatigable weren't really modern capital ships anymore. I put them in the same class as the Germans losing Pommern. And Renown and Repulse were adequate replacements. Hell, Couageous and Glorious, for all their nonsense design, were more useful warships than the first-generation battlecruisers in the context of the late war in the North Sea. Moreover, the entire battlecruiser concept had started to become less valuable as the Royal Navy started to use more and more aircraft for scouting.
Their goal was absolutely to defeat part of the Grand Fleet in detail, either the BCF or the Invergordon battle squadron when they reacted to a German bombardment of Sunderland. That sort of thing absolutely can be done via positioning and visibility. They certainly weren't going to sea looking to fight the Grand Fleet as a whole and try and see if they could inflict more losses than they suffered. If that were the case, then Scheer wouldn't have turned away from Jellicoe at every opportunity.
Must say high quality thread, one of the more interesting ones I've seen on here in years. Naval history is one area of military history that I've always meant to read a lot more on, but just have never made the time.
My opinion is that the strongest argument is that it was an indecisive outcome, i.e. no clear victor. I think the next strongest argument is for a German victory, and the weakest argument is for a British victory. I do think that if we want to make an analogy, it's like a prize fight where it goes to decision and ends up a majority draw (i.e. 2 of three judges score it evenly with the third scoring a victor--the outcome of which is a draw), and probably the Germans are the minority victor but again, as it's a majority draw there is no "real" victor. I also think it's close enough that no one is really a crazy person for arguing any side of it.
That being said the most important outcome of it I think was that Scheer ultimately realized his dream of splitting off portions of the grand fleet and busting it up piecemeal, and being able to repeat it a few times to break Britain's supremacy in the North Sea, was never going to be possible. The biggest lesson out of Jutland for Germany was more that actually successfully luring out only a portion of the grand fleet was just not likely to be possible. That is big because it actually means even building the HSF to begin with was actually a strategic mistake. The whole premise of the HSF is that it would be able to get local superiority in engagements near Germany and beat the RN, and eventually whittle away the RN's overall advantage. The lesson of Jutland is that that was simply not to be, and the lesson of the naval buildup of the pre-war era was that Germany made a mistake in even trying to compete with Britain in development of a large surface fleet.
This is a lesson the admirals of the Kriegsmarine arguably had learned, they of course favored building small ships to focus on raiding enemy shipping and on submarines. But for reasons likely related to the same mental ego problems the Kaiser had, Hitler of course overruled that and committed resources to a pie-in-the-sky 1948 targeted program to get surface fleet parity with the British. While the Germans were smart enough to realize when war broke out in 1939 they needed to shift to submarine production because Plan Z was no longer remotely viable in the present reality of war, the resources already deployed to it had already set Germany on the wrong foot in many ways.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on August 07, 2021, 11:28:26 PM
The whole premise of the HSF is that it would be able to get local superiority in engagements near Germany and beat the RN, and eventually whittle away the RN's overall advantage. The lesson of Jutland is that that was simply not to be, and the lesson of the naval buildup of the pre-war era was that Germany made a mistake in even trying to compete with Britain in development of a large surface fleet.
It's worse than that. The fleet was built to Tirpitz's idea that the threat of a major naval battle in which Britain would suffer devastating losses, even if they annihilated their enemy, and thus leaving them vulnerable to other powers. The risk of that was supposed to pressure Britain to neutrality. Unfortunately, between that and their diplomatic bungling, they made themselves so threatening that even before the war had started Britain had reached accommodations with their traditional enemies in France and Russia, which meant that the powers that Britain was supposed to be worried about being vulnerable against were now their partners in containing Germany. Then matters of prestige, national pride and the Imperial ego came into it, and so even though the Risikflotte strategy had obviously failed by 1912, when there was still time to come to a naval convention with Britain and begin defusing tensions, the Germans were incapable of doing so.
QuoteThis is a lesson the admirals of the Kriegsmarine arguably had learned, they of course favored building small ships to focus on raiding enemy shipping and on submarines. But for reasons likely related to the same mental ego problems the Kaiser had, Hitler of course overruled that and committed resources to a pie-in-the-sky 1948 targeted program to get surface fleet parity with the British. While the Germans were smart enough to realize when war broke out in 1939 they needed to shift to submarine production because Plan Z was no longer remotely viable in the present reality of war, the resources already deployed to it had already set Germany on the wrong foot in many ways.
Raeder still liked his bigger ships and wanted his battlefleet back. And because Raeder had been the one who delivered the loyalty of the Navy to Hitler, he remained very important in crafting German naval policy.
The Imperial German Navy was built as it was purely because Kaiser Wilhelm II was jealous of his Uncle Bertie's navy, and wanted some similar shiny toys of his own. Tirpitz developed the Riskflotte rationale to get his own bureaucratic empire more money/power when it was obvious that there was no rational excuse for building the fleet. Tirpitz was clever - dare I say Trumplike - in starting a popular movement to force the government to do a silly thing and fund the fleet. I think that Tirpitz and his advisors knew full well that the British could easily out-build the Germans, and so wasn't really building to beat the British at all.
When the war came, and it was obvious that the High Seas Fleet had no real chance of ever being meaningful in the war, Scheer still had to do something to shield the IGN from the shame of having spent so much treasure so stupidly. So, he sailed a few times planning to take advantage of a miracle if that miracle manifested itself. It never did, so he settled for nibbling the Grand Fleet enough to ensure the honor of the German Navy was satisfied, and got out of there before worse things happened.
The British wanted to destroy enough of the HSF to allow the Grand Fleet to stand down its two oldest battle squadrons, mostly to release the men for industry and the destroyers to the trade war.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on August 07, 2021, 11:28:26 PM
This is a lesson the admirals of the Kriegsmarine arguably had learned, they of course favored building small ships to focus on raiding enemy shipping and on submarines. But for reasons likely related to the same mental ego problems the Kaiser had, Hitler of course overruled that and committed resources to a pie-in-the-sky 1948 targeted program to get surface fleet parity with the British. While the Germans were smart enough to realize when war broke out in 1939 they needed to shift to submarine production because Plan Z was no longer remotely viable in the present reality of war, the resources already deployed to it had already set Germany on the wrong foot in many ways.
This is largely true, but it ignores the impact of the German building program on the French Navy. The French wasted a far higher percentage of their defense funds on a pointless fleet than the Germans did, and they did it mostly to counter the Germans. That was a real boon to the Germans when, in 1940, they didn't have to face an army with effective machine guns or an air force with planes.
This is great stuff.
There is so much gamesmanship in it all, and so much stupidity from brilliant people.
The German naval buildup just doesn't make any damn sense if you step back and look at the big picture, and it is pretty obvious it doesn't make any sense if you can take yourself out of the role of the people with agendas.
Same with the French.
And lets not even get started on Japan and WW2. They make Tirpitz look like a genius in their level of just straight out dumb. But it's interesting how far you can go down an untenable path once you
1. Take the first step, and
2. Refuse to ever re-evaluate whether that first step was such a great idea.
In the case of japan, it wasn't even that everyone refused to re-evaluate; most of the leaders did, but couldn't endure the shame of being the first to admit that the prewar plan had failed and that Japan was inevitably going to be defeated. Once the Emperor took that step, everyone else breathed a sigh of relief and agreed. Even for the Emperor, though, the most he would concede was that "the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage."
Shame-based cultures suck at making meaningful re-evaluations of personal decisions or the decisions of superiors.
Questions
1) What was French interwar spending on the navy and how did it compare with spending on the army?
2) To what extent was French naval spending and policy based on France's own perceived imperial and prestige needs, the competition from Italy's naval buildup, and the competition from Germany?
Another Jutland myth is that the British battlecruisers that blew up did so because they were not as well-armored as their battleship sisters. As it turns out, none of the fatal hits would have been resisted by a battleship, either, as they were turret hits. The problem was that measures taken by Beatty to improve the BCF's rate of fire involved removing features that kept the flash from a turret hit out of the magazines. Lion was almost sunk via the same means, but the mortally wounded Q turret commander got the magazine flooded in time.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 09, 2021, 11:43:47 AM
Questions
1) What was French interwar spending on the navy and how did it compare with spending on the army?
2) To what extent was French naval spending and policy based on France's own perceived imperial and prestige needs, the competition from Italy's naval buildup, and the competition from Germany?
The book
Case Red goes into this. The French spent* about Ff150B from 1925-1935, and a bit less than 40B of that was spent on the Navy. The base at Mers-el-Kebir cost more than the Maginot Line during that period. The army got around Ff95B from 1925-1935, the air force around $15B.
Italy had no significant building program for most of this period. The French battlecruisers were an answer to the pocket battleships, and the Richelieu class to the Twins. The Italian battleships were a response to the French battleships. There was certainly an element of prestige to the naval buildup, but what was spent far exceeded what was gained, particularly as the French Navy had no ships equipped with sonar and only a handful of the destroyers even had depth charges.
* all of these numbers are very rough, rounded off and generally the result of assuming budgets were distributed the same in 1935 as in 1930.
Quote from: grumbler on August 09, 2021, 11:42:16 AM
In the case of japan, it wasn't even that everyone refused to re-evaluate; most of the leaders did, but couldn't endure the shame of being the first to admit that the prewar plan had failed and that Japan was inevitably going to be defeated. Once the Emperor took that step, everyone else breathed a sigh of relief and agreed. Even for the Emperor, though, the most he would concede was that "the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage."
Shame-based cultures suck at making meaningful re-evaluations of personal decisions or the decisions of superiors.
I was actually thinking further back then that though. All the way back to "Hey, lets invade China!"
By the time the first shot was fired against the West, their fate was sealed. I think plenty of them knew it was as well. That was already WELL down the path of "Ooops, this isn't working out quite the way we planned...."
Quote from: Berkut on August 09, 2021, 01:42:48 PM
I was actually thinking further back then that though. All the way back to "Hey, lets invade China!"
By the time the first shot was fired against the West, their fate was sealed. I think plenty of them knew it was as well. That was already WELL down the path of "Ooops, this isn't working out quite the way we planned...."
I'm not sure that the China war (started by a Japanese Army captain, recall) was an obviously losing proposition when it started. None of the Chinas had popular support, and the Japanese could have accomplish a lot simply by not being the brutal fascist fucks they were in the baseline scenario. By 1941, yeah, they'd fucked themselves, and the leadership secretly knew it. They wargamed out the Pacific war before they even decided to go to war, lost catastrophically in the wargame, and decided to go to war anyway, under the assumption that, if they had to build 300,000 tons of merchant shipping to survive, then that was just going to happen (ignoring the fact that they'd never launched even 80,000 tons of shipping in any month in their history). Banzai!
it wasn't just the leadership, though. Every Japanese unit from squad to army to fleet in the war grossly over-reported its own success and enemy losses.
Quote from: grumbler on August 09, 2021, 01:39:18 PM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 09, 2021, 11:43:47 AM
Questions
1) What was French interwar spending on the navy and how did it compare with spending on the army?
2) To what extent was French naval spending and policy based on France's own perceived imperial and prestige needs, the competition from Italy's naval buildup, and the competition from Germany?
The book Case Red goes into this. The French spent* about Ff150B from 1925-1935, and a bit less than 40B of that was spent on the Navy. The base at Mers-el-Kebir cost more than the Maginot Line during that period. The army got around Ff95B from 1925-1935, the air force around $15B.
Italy had no significant building program for most of this period. The French battlecruisers were an answer to the pocket battleships, and the Richelieu class to the Twins. The Italian battleships were a response to the French battleships. There was certainly an element of prestige to the naval buildup, but what was spent far exceeded what was gained, particularly as the French Navy had no ships equipped with sonar and only a handful of the destroyers even had depth charges.
* all of these numbers are very rough, rounded off and generally the result of assuming budgets were distributed the same in 1935 as in 1930.
Interesting.
I found a table of naval expenditures here: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/bbm%3A978-1-349-09154-6%2F1.pdf
From this book: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-349-09154-6
Cant vouch for accuracy but seems legit.
Normalizing to the 1913 price levels, naval spending was (millions of francs):
1920 181 0.06
1921 320 0.11
1922 381 0.08
1923 267 0.09
1924 309 0.13
1925 244 0.13
1926 234 0.19
1927 397 0.18
1928 421 0.22
1929 570 0.25
1930 589 0.17
1931 747 0.19
1932 580 0.14
1933 750 0.17
1934 772 0.20
1935 837 0.17
1936 916 0.22
1937 858 0.20
1938 997 0.19
The second number is an estimate of the proportion of total military expenditures taken by naval spending; the French budgetary figures come from Flora, Peter et al. 1983. State, Economy and Society in Western Europe, 1815-1975 - see here: https://gpih.ucdavis.edu/Government.htm. I am not that certain about those proportions as Flora/Peter did weird things with their new/old Franc conversions but the trends across time should be about right.
The big push on naval spending occurs in the 1927-31 period; proportionately 1928 and 29 stand out. This provides support for the theory that the pocket battleship program had on impact of French naval spending, assuming I have the construction dates right. However, the late 20s increase also coincides with the defeat of the Left and the installation of the Poincare ministry so political considerations may have had an effect. There is obviously a lot going on during time, including the final withdrawal from the Rhineland and the planning of the big fortification program.
Quote from: Berkut on August 09, 2021, 01:42:48 PM
I was actually thinking further back then that though. All the way back to "Hey, lets invade China!"
By the time the first shot was fired against the West, their fate was sealed
The two are inextricably connected because of the need for oil and the reality of where that oil was located.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 09, 2021, 05:31:37 PM
Quote from: Berkut on August 09, 2021, 01:42:48 PM
I was actually thinking further back then that though. All the way back to "Hey, lets invade China!"
By the time the first shot was fired against the West, their fate was sealed
The two are inextricably connected because of the need for oil and the reality of where that oil was located.
Also the fact that Japan's economy couldn't long survive without US iron, steel and scrap metals. The US embargoes started a timer that, when it expired, would leave Japan unable to wage war.
But that is exactly my point.
The initial step (war of conquest in China) doesn't seem SUCH a bad idea, but once they started down that path, there wasn't a lot of exits that don't end with "War with the USA" given their absolute dependence on trade with the US to supply exactly that war, and the eventual US reluctance to be part of that.
It's a classic case of small, reasonable steps, each of which isn't THAT bad of an idea, but the sum of which is absolutely disastrous - and not really even that unpredictable, at some point. But still seemingly impossible to turn course.
It's like you are driving your car pretty slowly, and you know there is a cliff up ahead, and you are definitely going to die if you don't turn, but there is some yummy and delicious treat on the road....and surely someone else will turn later....we don't have to turn NOW, right?
And then you drive the fucking car right off the cliff that you could see coming a mile away, but could never just summon the will to turn away from....I find this stuff fascinating, and not a little depressing. It's not like every society doesn't do similar things. Hell, we are all doing it right now in regards to climate change. Later! We will totally handle that later!
Successful warmongers balance their militarism with diplomacy and understanding of practical limits. Japan could have gotten away with a lot in China if had it been willing to compromise some of its goals. By eliminating the political space for diplomacy to operate the Japanese militarists boxed themselves into inevitable conflict with the USA. But it could have gone differently in theory.
Quote from: grumbler on August 09, 2021, 03:16:50 PM
I'm not sure that the China war (started by a Japanese Army captain, recall) was an obviously losing proposition when it started. None of the Chinas had popular support, and the Japanese could have accomplish a lot simply by not being the brutal fascist fucks they were in the baseline scenario. By 1941, yeah, they'd fucked themselves, and the leadership secretly knew it. They wargamed out the Pacific war before they even decided to go to war, lost catastrophically in the wargame, and decided to go to war anyway, under the assumption that, if they had to build 300,000 tons of merchant shipping to survive, then that was just going to happen (ignoring the fact that they'd never launched even 80,000 tons of shipping in any month in their history). Banzai!
it wasn't just the leadership, though. Every Japanese unit from squad to army to fleet in the war grossly over-reported its own success and enemy losses.
... and if the data you get in is garbage, it makes it even harder to make rational leadership decisions.
Interesting to me that Japanese industrial management in the 80s corrected for those flaws quite successfully, as I understand it. Certainly, Toyota didn't - and doesn't - operate like that. I idly wonder where and how that changed. It's tempting to conclude that the lessons of the loss of the war led to improvements, but I have no idea if it did. But the "Japanese management revolution" certainly seems to not have those sorts of problems.
Quote from: Jacob on August 09, 2021, 07:09:51 PM
Quote from: grumbler on August 09, 2021, 03:16:50 PM
I'm not sure that the China war (started by a Japanese Army captain, recall) was an obviously losing proposition when it started. None of the Chinas had popular support, and the Japanese could have accomplish a lot simply by not being the brutal fascist fucks they were in the baseline scenario. By 1941, yeah, they'd fucked themselves, and the leadership secretly knew it. They wargamed out the Pacific war before they even decided to go to war, lost catastrophically in the wargame, and decided to go to war anyway, under the assumption that, if they had to build 300,000 tons of merchant shipping to survive, then that was just going to happen (ignoring the fact that they'd never launched even 80,000 tons of shipping in any month in their history). Banzai!
it wasn't just the leadership, though. Every Japanese unit from squad to army to fleet in the war grossly over-reported its own success and enemy losses.
... and if the data you get in is garbage, it makes it even harder to make rational leadership decisions.
Interesting to me that Japanese industrial management in the 80s corrected for those flaws quite successfully, as I understand it. Certainly, Toyota didn't - and doesn't - operate like that. I idly wonder where and how that changed. It's tempting to conclude that the lessons of the loss of the war led to improvements, but I have no idea if it did. But the "Japanese management revolution" certainly seems to not have those sorts of problems.
W. Edwards Deming was extremely influential in postwar Japan, with his model of statistical (objective) quality control and his idea that workers and management should both be focused on improving quality as the main driver in improving sales and profits. This fit very neatly into the Japanese concepts of perfectibility and individual responsibility, and enabled the Japanese to establish a reputation for quality that made their goods desirable world-wide. Ironically, US industry , for whom he developed his ideas originally, remained convinced that sales was driven by price and advertising, and that consumers didn't much care about quality.
Quote from: Berkut on August 09, 2021, 08:53:46 AM
And lets not even get started on Japan and WW2. They make Tirpitz look like a genius in their level of just straight out dumb. But it's interesting how far you can go down an untenable path once you
1. Take the first step, and
2. Refuse to ever re-evaluate whether that first step was such a great idea.
The interesting thing about Japan is that there's an argument to be made that nobody was actually 'in charge' after the death of Yamagata Aritomo in 1922. Because the Japanese political system relied so heavily on the genro, and Yamagata in particular had the military, and especially the Army (which he had created) under his influence, it really couldn't survive past them. Like many powerful groups, the genro gave little thought to building up successors. However, Yamagata in particular was steadfastly opposed to any kind of political parties and any kind of parliamentary responsibility for ministers. The entire structure that the council had built up around themselves effectively ceased to function after Yamagata died, as the remaining genro member who lived until 1940 was a late addition who didn't have the power and prestige of the other members who had built the Japanese government from scratch. So you had a parliament that had been neutered as an act of policy, and which was steadfastly opposed by many powerful groups in the country. You had an imperial institution that had been deliberately constructed in such a way that its enormous power was constrained by constitutional custom, and which spent crucial years filled by a near invalid. You had a military who had traditionally maintained loyalty to the emperor, but through a self-serving interpretation that prioritized him as supreme commander and ignored any ministerial authority, saving only the elder statesmen that had created them. And because of how Japan had secured its place in Asia, militant nationalism had been required to be sown deeply.
Japan was already a political powder keg. Then you throw it into fifteen years of economic ruin, where the postwar recession was followed up by the Great Kanto Quake, whose financial repercussions were nothing short of devastating. And that's when the young officers, born in the countryside, indoctrinated into the most brutal of nationalist cults and with absolutely no prospects if they couldn't win glory with the army, started killing politicians who didn't agree with them. At one point, it seemed like Hirohito might put his hands on the reins, but when his uncustomary display of power in crushing an attempted coup was rebuked by the ritual suicide of a man who he consider near to a father figure, he began to toe the line, especially when it was suggested to him that he might become a target for assassination so that he could be succeeded by his brother (a darling of the ultranationalist set).
And that's why a bunch of field-grade officers in Manchuria were able to effectively set national policy.
Quote from: grumbler on August 09, 2021, 01:13:53 PM
Another Jutland myth is that the British battlecruisers that blew up did so because they were not as well-armored as their battleship sisters. As it turns out, none of the fatal hits would have been resisted by a battleship, either, as they were turret hits. The problem was that measures taken by Beatty to improve the BCF's rate of fire involved removing features that kept the flash from a turret hit out of the magazines. Lion was almost sunk via the same means, but the mortally wounded Q turret commander got the magazine flooded in time.
Powder formulation played a role in this as well. German powder was generally more stable than British cordite, less prone to flash. This was the product of years of deliberate effort by the excellent German chemical industry. The British chemical industry, which had been one of the major victims of the Long Depression, hadn't been able to keep up, and used far more dangerous solvents that would be more likely to flash at the drop of a hat, as opposed to the more complex, slower-burning German powders. The Germans had better powder and better procedures, so when Derfflinger took the kind of hit that blew up Invincible, you just had a bad fire. There were cases on German ships where silk powder bags would be singed, but survive.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 09, 2021, 06:53:50 PM
Successful warmongers balance their militarism with diplomacy and understanding of practical limits. Japan could have gotten away with a lot in China if had it been willing to compromise some of its goals. By eliminating the political space for diplomacy to operate the Japanese militarists boxed themselves into inevitable conflict with the USA. But it could have gone differently in theory.
I'm not sure. I don't think there was space for China - or any of the Chinese factions to significant compromise. I don't think there's a route out for Japan that doesn't involve total victory in China and I'm not sure that was ever possible.
Though I've only read books that are more from the Chinese perspective/about China.
Quote from: Sheilbh on August 10, 2021, 06:00:52 AM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 09, 2021, 06:53:50 PM
Successful warmongers balance their militarism with diplomacy and understanding of practical limits. Japan could have gotten away with a lot in China if had it been willing to compromise some of its goals. By eliminating the political space for diplomacy to operate the Japanese militarists boxed themselves into inevitable conflict with the USA. But it could have gone differently in theory.
I'm not sure. I don't think there was space for China - or any of the Chinese factions to significant compromise. I don't think there's a route out for Japan that doesn't involve total victory in China and I'm not sure that was ever possible.
Though I've only read books that are more from the Chinese perspective/about China.
Assuming that the US for some reason doesn't intervene and maintains trade with Japan, then a Japanese victory of sorts is possible. They could destroy the Nationalist military, just as they did in 1944, which would give them the ability to move freely around the country. But China was huge, and the Japanese occupation involved maintaining strong nodes of troops in large centres and applying the threat of force against a countryside that was able to do as it pleased when there weren't Japanese troops present. They were never able to control the countryside, and the Nationalist-Communist truce had allowed the Communists to focus on getting their agents spread more widely across China (they were always focused more on preparing to resume the fight against the Nationalists more than the Japanese). Even a Japanese victory likely results in years of guerilla fighting, which the Japanese would respond to with savage reprisals that would shock the world.
Threads like this remind me why I ended up being a regular here. :cheers:
Japan, to "win" in China, just needed a credible puppet around which to build an operable puppet state. Rather like Napoleonic France in Spain. The Japanese ruined their chances of having such a puppet, however, with their wanton brutality and open racism. Japan's army could march wherever it wanted to, but logistics would keep it from staying anywhere not on a rail line or within a few hundred miles of the coast. With a puppet in place, the Japanese could reduce their own commitment.
The nationalists and Communists were willing to wait for outside powers to actually defeat Japan. They both knew that they couldn't be anything but an annoyance to the IJN (barring some heroic efforts like those during the first three Changsha campaigns). But they could make Japan pay for staying in China, and it was this cost that ultimately convinced Japan to widen the war in order to end it.
I guess that's the same with the Germans in the Soviet Union. I am sure they had to put some real effort into cruelty to become the worse choice for the (especially non-Russian) population than Stalin's regime.
Quote from: Sheilbh on August 10, 2021, 06:00:52 AM
I'm not sure. I don't think there was space for China - or any of the Chinese factions to significant compromise. I don't think there's a route out for Japan that doesn't involve total victory in China and I'm not sure that was ever possible.
Though I've only read books that are more from the Chinese perspective/about China.
Japan could have survived a sustained level of conflict and insurgency in China as long as trade in essential materials was not cut off.
Quote from: grumbler on August 10, 2021, 08:22:34 AM
Japan, to "win" in China, just needed a credible puppet around which to build an operable puppet state. Rather like Napoleonic France in Spain. The Japanese ruined their chances of having such a puppet, however, with their wanton brutality and open racism. Japan's army could march wherever it wanted to, but logistics would keep it from staying anywhere not on a rail line or within a few hundred miles of the coast. With a puppet in place, the Japanese could reduce their own commitment.
The nationalists and Communists were willing to wait for outside powers to actually defeat Japan. They both knew that they couldn't be anything but an annoyance to the IJN (barring some heroic efforts like those during the first three Changsha campaigns). But they could make Japan pay for staying in China, and it was this cost that ultimately convinced Japan to widen the war in order to end it.
Yeah. They tried with the Wang Jinwei regime and Wang is a genuinely impressive figure - especially in terms of his revolutionary and republican credentials. It is difficult to think of a better figure to build a legitimate collaborationist regime around - the only one I can think of is possibly Petain.
But as you say it required Japan to take enough of a step back for that regime to legitimise itself and establish some credibility which they were never willing or able to do. And, as Tamas says, it could not cohere as a project for anything beyond minimal collaboration and control. There is a route to a credible Wang Jinwei regime around anti-western colonialism and Japan as sort of an older brother nation supporting China free itself from the shackles of western colonialism, communism and Chiang's corruption; but the Japanese are never interested in that option. Like the German occupation of the USSR their sole purpose for a Chinese state and China's role economically was as a slave population.
I think that's why it's impossible to see a compromise that could ever be acceptable to any of the fighting Chinese factions which is why short of total victory there was no option for Japan. And the Chinese states' shift to more of a guerilla conflict that would make the Japanese pay (and their resources for doing so even despite incredible civilian costs) after they realise that however heroically they fought they couldn't beat Japan on their terms reinforces that. There was no route out and there was enough in the Chinese states to keep their fight going - that they survived 1937-38 is extraordinary but once they move to destroying dams and levees and operating guerilla across China and they've moved to Chongqing it's possible to see a route to the defeat of Chiang's regime, or Mao, but I think it's impossible to see a route to a Japanese "victory".
Japan likely could have avoided war with the United States, but it was still in an unsustainable situation. Until Japan seized the southern half of French Indochina, the U.S. didn't implement an oil embargo. Even after that seizure, while FDR imposed an oil embargo that was devastating to Japan, he still did not have the political capital to declare war. Had Japan invaded the Dutch East Indies after that, and had not attacked Pearl, I actually think it is unlikely FDR is able to get political capital sufficient to declare war against Japan over some Dutch colonies. In the real timeline of course Japan basically attacked the Dutch East Indies concurrent with attack Pearl.
Part of what drove the decision to attack Pearl was the widely held belief that an attack on the DEI would draw the United States into war, so Japan wanted to hit its fleet hard before it attacked the DEI. The DEI of course had some decent oil production, which is why Japan needed/wanted it. I think the Japanese significantly misunderstood FDR's political position though, and didn't realize he was significantly constrained by isolationist sentiment in his own Congress. I think it is highly unlikely FDR can get a Declaration of War out of Congress in response to the DEI being attacked.
Now the problem is while the DEI helps Japan's oil problems taking those oil fields certainly does not solve them. To alt-history fan wank imagine Japan tries to just "solidify" its holdings at that point, no more aggressive wars and it tries to let things cool off with the United States. There had even been a deal discussed in Japan where in exchange for an end to the trade war, Japan would cede various territories already conquered. That actually wouldn't be a terrible deal for Japan since a number of the territories it had conquered actually served little purpose for Japan, so would not really hurt to give up. Even still, given how things were going, Japan would be in a rough place where too much of its overseas Empire is taking up too much resources to keep occupied/controlled.
To some degree every great empire in history did what grumbler suggested--implement some level of local control with leaders who speak the language and are part of the culture of the locals. Japan's behaviors made such an option non-viable. Even shorter lived Empires like the USSR somewhat followed this model, not just with how it let the Warsaw Pact countries mostly govern themselves, but even the SSRs were structured around some level of local control to keep nationalist sentiment more limited.
Japan was in a silly situation where it needed to keep expanding to seize more resources to maintain its Empire, which just lead to it needing to keep expanding to seize more resources to maintain its Empire. The obvious underlying problem is its method of Empire building was too resource intensive and unsustainable, it all would likely have collapsed in a fairly short timeline even without a war with the United States. Some of its holdings it probably could have held on to for many decades, but many would have had to be abandoned.
Isolationism in the US in Dec 1941 has generally been way overstated in casual histories and on the 'net. In Nov 1941, Americans preferred to focus on the defeat of Germany over remaining out of the war by 68-28% https://exhibitions.ushmm.org/americans-and-the-holocaust/us-public-opinion-world-war-II-1939-1941 (https://exhibitions.ushmm.org/americans-and-the-holocaust/us-public-opinion-world-war-II-1939-1941)
Regarding Japan, something like 60% of the US populace in July 1941 thought it worth risking war to prevent Japan from becoming more powerful, and that number increased to more than two-thirds after Japan seized southern Indochina. (can't lay my hands on the exact numbers right now, but they are referenced here: https://news.gallup.com/vault/199049/gallup-vault-country-unified-pearl-harbor.aspx (https://news.gallup.com/vault/199049/gallup-vault-country-unified-pearl-harbor.aspx)
The ironic thing about Roosevelt's actions that pushed Japan into attacking was that he believed (and the US public believed) that he was doing the opposite: pushing Japan away from the warlike path. This, again, shows how important groupthink is and how data that refutes the premise can be interpreted as supporting it. Japan's efforts to disguise their decision to go to war behind a diplomatic façade worked because the Roosevelt administration saw in them what it wanted to see.
Japan ceding their least valuable conquests? Talking like that would be a good way to get yourself assassinated by a pack of junior army officers. It would have been politically impossible, as the nationalists had turned the old Triple Intervention into a horror story of how Japan's enemies would hold it back, equal in disgrace to the unequal treaties. A politician or senior officer talking about such a surrender would be setting himself up for a meeting with a bunch of sword-wielding hicks from the sticks.
Quote from: grumbler on August 10, 2021, 09:53:56 AM
Isolationism in the US in Dec 1941 has generally been way overstated in casual histories and on the 'net. In Nov 1941, Americans preferred to focus on the defeat of Germany over remaining out of the war by 68-28% https://exhibitions.ushmm.org/americans-and-the-holocaust/us-public-opinion-world-war-II-1939-1941 (https://exhibitions.ushmm.org/americans-and-the-holocaust/us-public-opinion-world-war-II-1939-1941)
Regarding Japan, something like 60% of the US populace in July 1941 thought it worth risking war to prevent Japan from becoming more powerful, and that number increased to more than two-thirds after Japan seized southern Indochina. (can't lay my hands on the exact numbers right now, but they are referenced here: https://news.gallup.com/vault/199049/gallup-vault-country-unified-pearl-harbor.aspx (https://news.gallup.com/vault/199049/gallup-vault-country-unified-pearl-harbor.aspx)
The ironic thing about Roosevelt's actions that pushed Japan into attacking was that he believed (and the US public believed) that he was doing the opposite: pushing Japan away from the warlike path. This, again, shows how important groupthink is and how data that refutes the premise can be interpreted as supporting it. Japan's efforts to disguise their decision to go to war behind a diplomatic façade worked because the Roosevelt administration saw in them what it wanted to see.
I'm skeptical, first opinion polling on general ideas isn't the same as an actual decision or vote to go to war. The actual 1940 Presidential election featured Roosevelt making a campaign promise to stay out of the war, with Willkie campaigning on Roosevelt being duplicitous on that topic. Both candidates did promise to make the U.S. prepared for war, which is a little paradoxical, but not really given the base illogic of the voting public at any given point in history.
By 1941 the public was very concerned about Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, and there are opinion polls out there saying it was "worth it to go to war" if they got too strong. But the overwhelming majority of reporting at the time was focused on Europe, Britain, and Germany. I think it would be a hard sell for FDR to declare a pre-emptive war against
Japan over what would be seen in the public as "some Dutch islands in the far Pacific." Opinion polling has found many things the public favors in modern times that never get effected into policy--the mechanics of political action aren't the same as vague opinions, and when something is an active matter of decision before the government reporting on it and opinions on the particulars frequently shift around various battle lines that aren't obvious from simple opinion polls.
In any case an attack on Pearl Harbor brought with it the certainty of total war and guarantee of major U.S. military response. An attack on the DEI alone does not do either, and it was a defect in Japanese reasoning that they didn't understand that.
Quote from: Neil on August 10, 2021, 10:01:53 AM
Japan ceding their least valuable conquests? Talking like that would be a good way to get yourself assassinated by a pack of junior army officers. It would have been politically impossible, as the nationalists had turned the old Triple Intervention into a horror story of how Japan's enemies would hold it back, equal in disgrace to the unequal treaties. A politician or senior officer talking about such a surrender would be setting himself up for a meeting with a bunch of sword-wielding hicks from the sticks.
I mean it was the Japanese who actually sketched out that plan for what it's worth, that's not alt-history. I don't believe anyone got assassinated over it. Japanese ambassador to the United States Kichisaburō Nomura held several meetings with Cordell Hull to attempt to negotiate a settlement aimed at ending animosity and economic warfare. The final offer Nomura made was a withdrawal from southern Indochina, an agreement in principle to negotiate an end to the Sino-Japanese war, and a promise to not wage offensive warfare against any further targets in Southeast Asia. In exchange the Japanese asked for quite a bit--an end to American support for the Nationalists/Kuomintang in China, and end to all economic sanctions against Japan, a "quota system" of guaranteed oil supply to be sold to Japan at market rates fulfilled by the U.S. and other Western oil producers, and Japanese "economic access" to specific commodities and goods extracted from the Dutch East Indies.
I don't think there was ever a real chance FDR accepted a deal like that, but as a basis for alt-history wanking it's sufficient enough that the Japanese in real life did cook up the idea, even if it was part of a bad-faith negotiating process. The salient point is even if FDR inexplicably accepted the deal and Japan actually honored it, it's unlikely they could have just easily worked out a peace in China, and the endless Chinese war was going to be a major drain on Japanese resources, which would like cause either economic issues and decay, or would in short order lead them going back to invade other countries for more resources. Or maybe in a world where the U.S. is helping fuel Japan, they try to go back to the negotiating people to extract more treasure in exchange for "not attacking" people.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on August 10, 2021, 10:23:47 AM
I'm skeptical, first opinion polling on general ideas isn't the same as an actual decision or vote to go to war. The actual 1940 Presidential election featured Roosevelt making a campaign promise to stay out of the war, with Willkie campaigning on Roosevelt being duplicitous on that topic. Both candidates did promise to make the U.S. prepared for war, which is a little paradoxical, but not really given the base illogic of the voting public at any given point in history.
One should always be skeptical of evidence and the interpretation of it, but should be even more skeptical about interpretations that ignore or go counter to the evidence.
QuoteBy 1941 the public was very concerned about Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, and there are opinion polls out there saying it was "worth it to go to war" if they got too strong. But the overwhelming majority of reporting at the time was focused on Europe, Britain, and Germany. I think it would be a hard sell for FDR to declare a pre-emptive war against Japan over what would be seen in the public as "some Dutch islands in the far Pacific." Opinion polling has found many things the public favors in modern times that never get effected into policy--the mechanics of political action aren't the same as vague opinions, and when something is an active matter of decision before the government reporting on it and opinions on the particulars frequently shift around various battle lines that aren't obvious from simple opinion polls.
I don't think that it would be at all hard to Roosevelt to sell helping the British against the Japanese. The US public believed at the time that the Japanese were just doing what Hitler wanted, so going to war against them would be an indirect attack on Hitler.
Not that the Japanese would ever ignore the Philippines while going after the DEI; the PI was a dagger across Japan's throat, and the Japanese couldn't allow the Americans to choose when to start slicing.
QuoteIn any case an attack on Pearl Harbor brought with it the certainty of total war and guarantee of major U.S. military response. An attack on the DEI alone does not do either, and it was a defect in Japanese reasoning that they didn't understand that.
An attack on the DEI alone means that Japan's enemies have all the choices to make, and Japan's (and thus the Emperor's) future would be outside the hands of the Japanese leadership. They would have found that idea intolerable. They would go big or go home.
Quote from: grumbler on August 10, 2021, 01:31:54 PM
One should always be skeptical of evidence and the interpretation of it, but should be even more skeptical about interpretations that ignore or go counter to the evidence.
One should be skeptical of interpretations that consider polling data evidence.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on August 12, 2021, 11:37:02 AM
One should be skeptical of interpretations that consider polling data evidence.
President Dewey would strongly disagree.