90th anniversary of Jutland.

[delcyros]

At the time of Hipper's Death Ride, Scheer had only 4 effective BCs and, I believe, only16 dreadnoughts, whereas Jellicoe had 24 dreadnoughts, 3 super dreadnoughts, and either 5 or 6 BCs at his disposal. The HSF was so heavily outnumbered I don't see how, short of some miracle, they could have prevailed. Jellicoe was truly the only man on either side who could lose the war in one day and his handling of the GF, all things considered, was quite good. I would give Jellicoe an A, Hipper an A plus, Beatty a B minus and Scheer a C. Scheer was fortunate to get back to the Jade with as few losses as he had. Another point is that the GF was ready for battle just a few days later whereas the HSF was not ready to answer bells for some months.

The numbers might support Your view. However, the real difference was the cordite issue. On the paper, Hipper faced 4 QE´s (for most of it) and 6 BC during the Run to the South solely with his five BC´s. He was outnumbered 2:1 but got the better end of it (agreed, with a lot of an visibility advantage), just only because of the cordite. Had the battle, specificly the night battle prolonged or turned into a melee, the GF would get slaughtered with very high probability due to the dangerousness of their propellant charges. There is some room for a decent debate on this but most factors favour the HSF in night engagements (ruggedness in design [higher metacentric stability= more flooding tolerances], stable main propellant charges, fully efficiant APC-rounds, coordination of searchlights with FC, starshells, proper night training, 600mm torpedoes[The LONG LANCE of WW1])
beside of armour (which at the expected close distances wouldn´t play / provide such a huge role / protection on either side).
Personally, I would give Scheer an A-, that´s only because I understand the second turn about maneuvre now (more on that later).

Ahh, couldn´t resist. My 1st drawing of Lützow, the mightiest ship to be sunk at Jutland on either side and the ship with the best gunnery record of that battle.

[timshatz]

Sweet drawing Del. One thing about both the Germans, they built them pretty. Stil think the Prince Eugen is one of the best looking cruisers I've ever seen.

As usual, I bow to your math on the matter. Question though if the QEs were really in the game until the latter part of the "Run to the South". Missed the signal (not really their mistake, Beatty got a little wound up by events-IMHO). Got in at the end of it but that was after two BCs were gone, LION was mauled (going off memory here so could be a gap). Appreciate your perspective on this.

Definitely want to here you're ideas on the second turn. Always mystified me. What was he thinking? Did he want to fight his way through? I, personally, would've run.

[delcyros]

The Run to the South:
Possibility A) Evan-Thomas starts in close order with Beatty.

Following the battle charts and ship logs, LÜTZOW opened fire at 15:48, followed by LION in the same minute. HMS BARHAM opened firing at 16:08, some 20 minutes later. The whole run to the South lasted 66 minutes till the turn of Beatty (and some more until Evan-Thomas turned). For the remaining 46 minutes (46 out of 66 means that the QE´s didn´t joined very late), the four QE´s recorded a total of six major calibre hits (four on MOLTKE and one each on SEYDLITZ and VON DER TANN). Note that by the time BARHAM opened firing, INDEFATIGABLE´s destruction was four minutes ago and QUEEN MARY was still intact (facing her demise 16 minutes later) as was LION for most (altough her "Q"-turret was already disabled by the hit at 16:00).
If we assume that the gunnery would be around the same than was for the remainder of this phase of engagement, we cannot expect more than 2-3 additional major calibre hits on Hippers five BC´s. That´s insufficiant to make a difference. You might insist that the range was different (LION opened at around 17.000 yards while BARHAM opened at around 19.000 yards) but then it should be noted as well that BARHAM opened from a much more favourable position in terms of visibility than did Beatty (Hipper stayed quite well with the sun in his back against Beatty, which partly explains the low gunnery record of Beatty in this phase of engagement).

for explenation of the second turn about maneuvre, I will need to prepare some battle charts first.

regards,
delc

[timshatz]

Good post, as always, Del.

Always thought the QEs started in much later. Thought the BCs were duking it out on their own for 2x the time posted on your response. Do you have a link to a description of the battle? Not questioning, just want to brush up on the details (and it's all in the details).

If I do my math right, the QEs were engaged for 46 minutes, firing an average of 10 rounds a minute (figuring a lower number for the after turrets not getting into it until 20 minutes after the fight started). 4 ships, 10 RPM, 40 rounds for the group. That would mean around 1600 15" rounds fired in the first 46 minutes with 5 hits. Comes out to well less than 1% hit rate.

Looking forward to your ideas on the second turn about.

My Math has to be off:
1 My RPM is too high.
2. Barnham opens fire 20 minutes into the fight but the ships further back do not start shooting until much later
3. Distance affected the accuracy.
4. Rumor I have heard- British FC was pretty poor, focusing more on rounds out than on rounds on target. Heard the Germans were more regulated and more accurate in their shooting.

I guess the way to answer the question would be to find out when the ships in the QE group started shooting and how many rounds were fired by each ship during the fight. Even with the Barnham firing for the full 46 minutes, the shooting is pretty bad. Assuming all hits were hers, assuming she was firing the whole time-full out, she comes in with an accuracy somewhere less than 1% for her gunnery.

[Henk]

Yes, the night battle were bad, but the Germans did quite well with the few they had and the Battle of Jutland still stays one of the best navel battles of all time. The Germans like it has been said could design them pretty, but the RN also had lovely ships. The German shell were also great. They were made to enter the hull or upper structure and then explode once inside the target. The RN shells exploded on impact. If you look at some of the damage on tyhe German ships after the batttle you would see the damage will show how the RN shells worked. The RN knew the German gunners were also great aimers and could shoot very well, but the RN showed that they also can hit there target.

Great drawing Del.

[delcyros]

Thanks.

The Germans like it has been said could design them pretty, but the RN also had lovely ships.

Agreed 100%, Henk. The QE´s and moreso the Splendid Cats were beauties on their own!

Thought the BCs were duking it out on their own for 2x the time posted on your response. Do you have a link to a description of the battle? Not questioning, just want to brush up on the details (and it's all in the details).

My prime source for this is the comprehensive analysis made by Campbell: Jutland. An analysis of the Fighting (Neew York 1986), page 46.

"(...), he (Evan-Thomas) altered course to 133 deg at 16:05 and 3 minutes later [note: 16:08] to about 160 deg, when BARHAM opened fire on the VON DER TANN with 15in CPC at about 19.000 yards"

It´s difficult to find a netsource on that as every source seems to prefer a new timesetting. J. Campbell is the most agreed on but there is even room for a reduction of Evan-Thomas entry according to:

"At 4.03 the British 5th Battle Squadron opened fire, rapidly hitting von der Tann and Moltke".

Battle of Jutland, the battlecruiser battle

I ignored that information for our purposes altough otherwise the webpage turned out to be very accurate.

Campbell even has the round expandeture figures for the 5th BS:
1099 15" rounds have been fired. Altough this is for the whole battle and not seperated by times. I assume that until about 16:22 or so, not all guns of the 5th BS were put to bear on Hipper. It´s reasonable that no more than around 300 major calibre rounds were fired by the 5th BS during the first phase of engagement, and it is possible that the actual figure is as low as 240 rounds, equaling to a hit rate in between 2% and 2.5%. Those rate estimates would also perfectly agree with the average 5th BS hit rate, which was 2.64% for the entire engagement (bearing in mind that the visisbility was somehow better for the run to the north).
As You might notice, average rate of fire was much lower than the theoretical max. battery output. Cease fire times, drill errors, obstruction times and spotting+correction time reduced that significantly over a longer timeframe. For brief engagements, some ships put up a very high rapid fire rate (Kaiser and Derfflinger surpassed 3 rounds per minute in 44 and 48 seconds, respectively occassionally but not for a prolonged period). The ship with the highest ammunition expandeture figure was HMS NEW ZEELAND with 420 rounds on her own for some 3 major calibre hits in respond.

Rumor I have heard- British FC was pretty poor, focusing more on rounds out than on rounds on target. Heard the Germans were more regulated and more accurate in their shooting.

Technically, the RN FC procedures were more advanced than the HSF procedures due to the introduction of centralized fire controll (spotter high placed) and the plot table. On the other hand, the HSF crews were much more methodical in their shooting (introducing ripple firing for quicker range adjustion) and significantly better trained. Prior to ww1 and until late 1915, there even was an annual gunnery championship in the HSF. Every crew could participate on different approaches and distances of target. All in all a quite modern maneuvre. Crack crews like those of AC SCHARNHORST repeatedly won that prize in 1913/1914, stunning the BB contenders. Precision was a key factor, but so was rate of fire according to our ww1 records (it should be noted that all german naval major calibre rifles were quick firing guns in opposition to breech loaders in the RN, which explains the better rate of fire).
All together, these efforts were put forwards in order to overutilize the fleet in an event of war.

[delcyros]

Now back to the turn about maneuvre of Scheer.

Much has been said about the communication, under which Jellicoe suffered during the whole battle. The same should be mentioned when judging Scheers maneuvre. Since most ships were retreating behind a smoke screen during the 1st turn about, little -except gunflashes- could be seen from the GF. The scouting was done by the 2nd SG CL Frankfurt. They were cruising in a loop some 4 miles further to the east and could spot the enemy van during the whole procedure of the fist about turn (compare attached battlechart 1). Frankfurt radioed the positions of the enemy battlefleet in a signal timed 18:57 to Scheer but the position given was nearly 2 miles to far south than historically. Scheer therefore must have gotten the impression that he could cut off the enemy van, crossing Jellicoe´s "T" with a second turn about at about 19:00 (compare attached battlechart 2). This effectively would bring the german line in between the damaged ships of the 5th BS (whiches position was uncertain for Scheer by then) and the rear of the british van. Since Frankfurt radioed correctly that the enemy van was started to get into columns (turning "together") and pushed south (the direction radioed was off by a minor error), this indeed could bring Scheer in a favourable proistion if the advance is concealed by the remaining smoke screens as far as possible. It seemed to be a situation of opportunity, and Scheer did not wanted to discard such a possibility. As it turned out and contradicting to his informations, the enemy fleet was far more into the northwest and retook line formation with a southeasterly course but then it was already to late.

[renrich]

Many thanks to you delcyros. I understand Scheer's actions much better now. Good picture of Lutzow, very purposeful looking. It really helped the naval architects when they decided they could superimpose all the turrets. I don't know whose idea the cage masts of the US Navy was but they made our BBs butt ugly. I have an original of the 1942 Jane's and also 1914 and 1945, both not original.

[delcyros]

It´s a pleasure for me to discuss things properly.
The US SOUTH CAROLINA introducing the all centerline end layout with superimposed turrets represented a quantum leap forwards in naval architecture.
I must admit that Lützow probably wouldn´t have looked that elegant if she had survived Jutland. All german ships were refitted with heavy tripod masts for a high placed spotter. We might argue what is more ugly, a tripod or a cage mast, difficult question . I personally like the clipper bows of late war US dreadnoughts.
The König´s were the first to introduce the tubular tower in 1917 but not even the Bayern´s received that.
As pointed out by Henk, the Royal Navy also had very elegant looking vessels.

[timshatz]

Great post Del. Going to have to stew on that one for a while. Gives the battle a whole new perpsective. Have to re-read and consider. I'll get back to you on it in about 6 months!

As for the looks of warships, I agree with the latter British BCs looking very nice. Less so the QEs. Kind of remind me of Japanese cars. All look the same. Think by the time the Hood came around they had run their course in terms of looks. Something about the Hood's turrets gave it an odd look.

Also like the triple turreted cruisers of both the US and Japanese navy during WW2. Great look to them. Serious, efficient. The Japanese definitely did a great job on their Cruisers. Less so their Battleships. Exempting the Yamato and Musashi, the Japanese Battleships looked old. Perhaps because they were.

The American Boises were pretty ships. Also the Des Moines. But the interwar cruisers were duds in terms of looks. IMHO.

[delcyros]

I have to underline, that this is a recent perspective. The turn about maneuvre is a critical aspect in considering Jutland. I was stumbling around after having read on another board that not only Jellicoe but also Scheer might have suffered from defective coms.
That´s what had to be expected but this issue isn´t covered extensively in books yet. There was some material in the Freiburg archive regarding the radio coms of rear Adm. Boedecker in CL FRANKFURT known for very long while other material (that of CL REGENSBURG f.e.) seems to have disappeared over the years. Campbell doesn´t even mentions german radio signals methodically (he does mention the british radio coms methodically), altough he spend some time in Freiburg for recherches (don´t know if he knew about Frankfurts radio signal but Campbell assembled that much material during his research that this might well went under). That´s somehow interesting as he pointed out that following the second turn about, the german van was steering 63 deg (which perfectly agrees to chart 2) first before the leading BB KÖNIG turned to 88 deg at 19:10. he doesn´t give an explenation but things become very clear with the coms in mind. By about 19:05, Scheer must have realized that the GF wasn´t where he expected her to be.
What becomes seriously important for me is that neither Jellicoe nor Scheer blamed their subordinate commanders for wrong communication (both had reason) but Beatty did. And with the shortcomings of communications in mind, both did an excellent job in that battle.

P.S.: There is a typo in the charts: The command of 1st SG by 19:00 had Hartog in DERFFLINGER, not Behncke. Hipper transferred from LÜTZOW to G 39 and it took some 2 hours until he regained command position in MOLTKE due to the heavy utilization of the BC´s.

regards,
delc

[renrich]

What a pleasure to have a dialogue with gentlemen who are so well informed. I believe the South Carolina would have been the first dreadnought launched if the US Navy had not delayed her construction. I have always liked the tripod masts as far as looks are concerned. The Brooklyn class of CLs were handsome. Lots of guns too. Were built as a reply to the Mogami class. Of course the Mogamis were remodeled as CAs. Of course the Salt Lake City is my favorite ship because of an uncle who served on her in 1941-43. She and Pensacola were the first US treaty cruisers, launched in 1929, heavily gunned with 10 8 in guns on only 9100 tons. The foremasts were a little high but big space between the funnels account for the nickname of SLC being Swayback Maru. Both had stellar war records. I have never understood why the main batteries had the arrangement of triples over twins. Perhaps you might know delc. There are some good websites on the SLC.

[delcyros]

It was not without reason that the SLC had such a layout. She was designed at a time when the USN had the most powerful BB´s (MARYLAND) of the world Their cruisers should also get an excellent armement. However, this was not without compromises. Since nobody in the design bureau was willing to reduce the engineering plant below 30 Kts, the turrets had to be placed on the very centerline ends to allow the compact machinery spaces amidships on the limited displacement. The barbette diameter was therefore limited by the narrow beam and excluded the use of triple turrets on the extreme ends due to the fine hullform. Having a raised triple turret behind became necessary but then the stability was compromised with having so much weight placed high in the ship. That´s the reason why the SLC and other ships of her class had a comparably low freeboard (to counter the negative stability effects). Another issue might be the weight. With 10.000 t. it simply isn´t possible to get 12 8" guns in 3 triple and a speed of 32+ Kts with adeaquat protection. In the SLC case, all triple turrets on the extreme ends also put a lot of weight to the ends, reducing the longitudinal structural strength of the whole design (it´s better to have a gradual increase in loads distributed from the stem to amidships instead of weight massively distributed the the very ends of a ship).
In subsequent US cruiser designs, these shortcomings were properly adressed . The use of 3 T3 8" guns also made it possible to move a little more backwards with the turret installation, so that neither weight not spacial issues had a detremental effect. As a positive side effect, the stability improved greatly, allowing the adoption of a higher freeboard and hence a generally better seakeeping ability.

[renrich]

delcyros, You are a treasure. I am 71 years old and have been wondering about that ever since I saw the first picture of the SLC. My uncle did not know the answer and he was a GM1c and later a CGM. I had an idea that it might be related to the narrow beam, max 65ft but never thought about the weight forward and aft and the low freeboard which was a consequence. They were wet ships. I have seen film of the SLC during the Doolittle mission and she was taking green water over the bow. After fitting of bilge keels they were supposed to be very steady gun platforms above 20 kts. Many thanks to you. The US got their money's worth out of that class of CAs. After the SLC was used in the Bikini Bomb tests they used her as a target ship off San Diego. They could not get her to sink with aerial rockets and bombs so finally had to torpedo her from a DD. She only reluctantly rolled over and sank then.

[trackend]

Thanks for the posts Delcyros all very interesting and informative