Talk:Battle of Jutland/Archive 1

message: Hi All, I decided to check this article again almost exactly a year after I first wrote the heart of the battle description. It didn't occur to me that it would've been viewed and edited, let alone discussed, to the extent that it has. But I guess I shouldn't really be surprised, given how Jutland has always been a favorite among military history experts and amateur buffs. In case you didn't know, as early as 1930 one prominent naval historian commented on Jutland: "Never has a single naval engagement spilt so much ink." Well, the oceans of ink have only continued to flow since then, and now in the Internet age, it appears this enthusiasm is carrying over to cyberspace.
On the issue of sources: it's true they're Anglo-centric. Then again, so is most of the war history as we read it in the West, given that the Germans lost both world wars. However, I'm pretty sure that either Scheer or Hipper, if not both, did write memoirs, and there's at least one biography of Hipper that I know of. The problem is that translations to English aren't readily available, though I admit I haven't looked around in quite a while.
Overall, I'd say the reason Jutland's so hotly discussed for such an inconclusive battle is how much potential it had that wasn't fulfilled, as the main engagement was so wickedly brief. Never before or since have so many capital ships been pitted against each other all at once - if my own calculations are correct, nearly 1 of every 4 battleships and battlecruisers ever built in the dreadnought era (1906-1946) were present at Jutland. The battle was so immensely complex as is, yet it could've been so much more.
:A translation of Scheer's memoirs is available on the web; see the External links section. Is there in fact much bias remaining in the article? (The German commanders are named; their strategy and plans are discussed, backed up by a quote from Scheer; their movements are given and justified. The account of the battle agrees with eye-witness German accounts. The external links and references have accounts from both sides.) The only place I can see where there might be bias is in the extensive discussion of British reaction in section 4 and little on the German reaction. Gdr 20:54, 2004 Oct 26 (UTC)
:: Surely the reason that all writing is so inconclusive, is that the battle was inconclusive. Two fleets, with vastly different objectives, met in circumstances where the technology and strategy of the times was immature, met in poor visibility, stumbled around, and lost each other, mainly in fear of torpedo attacks that never happened. Massive equipment failures on one side (British AP shells, exploding charges on BCs) meant that both sides drew the wrong conclusions for many years. As a vague question, does anyone deny that Campbell's acccount is fair? Greglocock 12:03, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A note from one of the article's original contributors 

message: This doesnt seem right to me:
"They were intended to be faster than battleships, with superior fire control, and able to pound enemy battleships at ranges at which the enemy could not reply"
As far as I know battlecruisers were never designed to fight battleships, they were to fight the cruisers of the scouting forces and were armored only against cruiser-sized guns (at least the british battlecruisers).
They were supposed to be protected against the heavy battleship-guns by their ability to outrun them.
Of course that concept ran into trouble once the battlecruiser faced a battlecruiser, a scenario the british apparently forgot when designing their battlecruisers (as no other navy had them at the time).
Nevfennas 21:11, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Good catch! -- Arwel 21:33, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Battlecruisers 

message: Something doesn't seem correct:
:"Most of the British losses in tonnage occurred in Beatty's squadron. The three capital ships the British lost that day were all under the command of Beatty."
This is confusing considering that according to the "Losses" section, the only ships lost in Beatty's Battle Cruiser Fleet were Queen Mary (27000t), Indefatigable(18500t), Nestor (1000t), Nomad (1000t) and Turbulent (1000t), adding up to roughly 48,500 tonnes. Of the 111,000 total tonnes lost by the British, this appears not to be "most" of it. Furthermore, the Order of battle at Jutland, clearly states that the 3rd Battle Cruiser Squadron under R. Adm. Hood was temporarily attached to Adm. Jellicoe's Grand Fleet. Thus his flagship, the Invincible, was not subject to Beatty's command, and its loss cannot be blamed on him. Therefore the statement "The three capital ships the British lost that day were all under the command of Beatty." is either an ambiguous statement or incorrect. Roger 21:37, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Jellicoe ordered Hood's 3BCS forward to join Beatty, and it was under Beatty's command, in line ahead of 1 and 2 BCS when it encountered Lützow and Derfflinger at about 18:20. Gdr 11:56, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Beatty Controversy 

message: All sources I know refer to the German 11 inch gun as a 280 milimeter weapon (more common 28 cm). I've never heard of 279 mm, unlike the 381mm for 15 inch guns. Nevertheless the 11 inches are referred to as 279mm in this article. Is there a source for this or has someone simply calculated the conversion and rounded it to 279? 213.191.70.226 10:31, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  11 inch gun 

message: Perhaps it should be mentioned at some point that in German, the Battle of Jutland is referred to almost exclusively as the Skagerrakschlacht. The German edition of the article touches upon this. Incidentally, Jutland is spelled Jütland (not Jütlan) in German. (Roger2dc 10:01, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've changed the introduction back to more or less how it was before Neutrality's edits on 19 December, since it's never known as the "Battle of the Skaggerak" in English, either. -- Arwel (talk) 13:02, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Skagerrakschlacht

message: :Also signals made with flags or searchlights from the flagship (usually placed at the head of the center column) could be seen by many ships. In a single column it would often take 10 minutes or more for a signal to be passed from the flagship at the front of the column to the last ship at the end, since smoke from the funnels often made it impossible to identify signals on ships behind the one directly ahead or behind, so every ship had to repeat the signal for the following one to understand. The time required for this was often doubled as most signals had to be confirmed by every ship before they could be executed.
I thought everything was wireless at this point.  Were flags perhaps used in order to maintain radio silence?  Were flags or searchlights actually used in this battle?  (The explanation is pretty long if not.)  Tempshill 01:00, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, flags and signal lights were used for tactical orders. Radio was used very sparingly (e.g. Beatty to Jellicoe reporting the German position). Partly this was due to fear of interception and partly due to conservatism of British signal doctrine. Andrew Gordon has a lot to say about the latter in The Rules of the Game, and the explanation is, as you surmise, pretty long. Gdr 13:10, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Radio vs. Flags and Searchlights