Jutland recurrent themes

From the birth of the Dreadnought to the period immediately after the end of World War I.
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19kilo10
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Re: Jutland recurrent themes

Post by 19kilo10 »

Yes he did...in 1914. Even Beatty did this......at Dogger Bank.....even though no submarine was, in fact, preasent.
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RF
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Re: Jutland recurrent themes

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At Dogger Bank I believe there was a misunderstanding of signals.....
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dougieo
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Re: Jutland recurrent themes

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At Dogger Bank when the Lion lost speed Beattys signal was misinterpreted and instead of pursueing the rest of the German Battlecruisers they concentrated on the Blucher.

The performance of the RN shells was very poor, Im sure Campbell points out that even the 15in shells from the 5th Battle Squadron barely penetrated 9in armour on the Moltke, if at all.

The German Battlecruisers were better armoured than there RN counterparts, this was further enhanced by the poor quality of the RN shells from what I understand. If the shells Had been better they would obviously caused more damage so the German losses may have been higher.

Just a thought, had the Germans had the same poor shells would the 3 RN Battlecruiser still have blown up?
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Jutland recurrent themes

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

Two thoughts here:

1. The British seem to have a problem with their signals. At Jutland, if I remember well, there were a couple of problems with Jellicoe and Beatty signals to their Squadrons.

2. About the better armour and design of the Germans BCs in comparison of those of the British of WWI I agree. I do believe that Campbell wrote something about it in his Jutland book. Anyway, it´s undeniable that the British had some problems in that area and if we add the problem of the cordite they experienced then we had the lethal combination that ended with thousands of lives and three British capital ships.

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dougieo
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Re: Jutland recurrent themes

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had it not been for the cordite do you think the same ships would have been sunk?

why was the gunnery of the RN Battlecruisers so abd by the way?

was it a technological thing, or more to do with the conditions on the day.
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Re: Jutland recurrent themes

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The gunnery of the battlecruisers was bad because Beatty didn't care a fig for gunnery practice. The shooting of the Invincible (who some credit with the mortal blows to Lutzow) was considerably better after the temporary trade of that BC squadron with the 5th Battle Squadron,for the specific purpose I believe of gunnery practice--still in effect at the battle of course. But the British BC shooting during the battlecruiser duel was obviously quite inferior.

While we are on the subject of 'what ifs', what if the Lutzow had been using AP shell instead of common? Would the Lion then have blown up as well, as she came so close to doing anyway? Imagine the greatly increased loss to the British materially and morally if 4 BCs blew up and also the greatly admired Beatty was blown up with them?

Though from what I've read his wife might not have missed him all that much...
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marcelo_malara
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Re: Jutland recurrent themes

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I have just finished Dreadnought gunnery and the battle of Jutland. I strongly recomend it, despite its outrageous price. I managed to get the soft cover edition, which is just around 30 bucks versus the hard cover´s 150. The author analyses the evolution of fire control in the RN from its beginings until Jutland battle, and the issue of the Pollen vs. Dreyer system. He goes on analyzing the battle and the alleged influence of the fire control on the failure of the BCs. All the blame goes to Beatty, not only because of the lack of training as has been pointed out, but also because of the manouvres previous to the engagement. Acording to the author, Beatty failed in ordering the 5BS staying close to the BC, which would have provided a heavy support. Also Beatty managed to arrange the BC in a line so disposed that smoke perturbed the fire control of the neighbouring ships.
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Jutland recurrent themes

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

Marcelo,

What about Pollen vs Dreyer. I`m of the belief that the infamous Dreyer has a lot to do also in Hood`s poor performance against Bismarck at DS.

Best regards.

PD: Some days ago I met a guy that had gone to the argentinian military musseum and had seen the models of the Moreno and Rivadavia BBs. Instantly I thought in you, friend.
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
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marcelo_malara
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Re: Jutland recurrent themes

Post by marcelo_malara »

Hi Karl:

Pollen was someone that saw a way to make money. He was constantly putting pressure on the Admiralty so they buy his system. The pressure went from going to the House of Commons to threaten the Admiralty of selling his system to other countries. The prices charged for his system were desproportioned high. Moreover, more than once in the long time from his first contact around 1905 to around 1913 when he was discharged as an Admiralty contractor, he assured to have designs in working order when really they were on he drawing board yet. I think that such a comercial policy nowadays would not be tolerated even by a non-military customer.
That said and with the hindsight benefit, the various Pollen designs were too complex for the technology of the day. For example he proposed a method of finding the enemy course and speed (see the thread about Radar Fire Control for the signicance of this) from a plot of the movements of the target, made automatically on a paper by a mechanical device using bearing and range info transmitted from the rangefinder.
On the other hand Dreyer´s system was more simple, albeit it required more human intervention, and about all, was far cheaper (about 6000 pounds for a complete ship installation versus 2000 pounds for the same) and came from within the service, which assured complete secrecy.
Hood´s table was old-fashioned in 1941, no doubt. But this was not Dreyer´s fault but Admiralty´s not upgrading her in time. For her time Dreyer´s system was certainly smart.

Thanks for your kind words about the Argentine dreadnoughts. They should be a remainder that Argentina was in those times a rising power, which managed to acquire two of the latest weapon at sea, in a time when only 10 countries in the world had such armament. Then a number of bad governments put the country in a poor state, to the point that today we have almost no air force.

Regards to all
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Jutland recurrent themes

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My father was born in Argentina, at Quilmes. His father and grandfather worked for the British steam companies there. He always told me what a beautiful and powerful country Argentina was and the rising she was going until the military "camarillas" and Peron got the country. They were "expelled" because they were "intervencionistas" or the such. My father have always want to return to his birthplace.
I began to think that I must take him there soon.

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An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
Sir Winston Churchill
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Re: Jutland recurrent themes

Post by Djoser »

Hi Marcelo! I also got the paperback version of 'Gunnery...'

Pollen really was a bit too pushy, and greedy, for his own good--which was maybe a shame for the Brits.
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marcelo_malara
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Re: Jutland recurrent themes

Post by marcelo_malara »

Hi Djoser:

As I progressed reading the book, I began to ask myself "how was it that the Admiralty didn´t kick this guy a__".

King regards
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19kilo
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Re: Jutland recurrent themes

Post by 19kilo »

"Castles of Steel" is a good read about WW1 naval operations.
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Re: Jutland recurrent themes

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19kilo wrote:"Castles of Steel" is a good read about WW1 naval operations.
Im reading this just now, does not paint a good picture of the Admiralty at times
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19kilo
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Re: Jutland recurrent themes

Post by 19kilo »

"Dreadnaught" by the same author is a must read.
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