AHC: Have the HSF decisively defeat the GF.

elkarlo

Banned
If enough ships fire dodgy shells at the HSF sea, it still has to run away in order to limp into port with damaged ships.

Plus, the dockyards used to repair ships are not the same as the slipways upon which they are constructed and further there are at most going to be about 40 capital ships in the British isles at a time when 120-140 ocean going merchantmen were putting into port every week.

Besides the whole point of the HSF wining is to avoid going for unrestricted submarine warfare and bringing in the US, if you bring in the US Germany loses.

There is a window of opportunity for the HSF but it must be exploited while they are close enough in capital ships and the British shells are dodgy in order to compensate for the mechanical advantage (such as much bigger guns) the British have on a hull for hull basis.


I meant ship yards, as in building new naval ships, not for repairs. In the end of 1917, when it became clear that the HSF wouldn't sally forth, the RN stopped ordering new naval ships, and went to building merchent men.

I don't think the HSF needed to beat the RN, as they were undeniably outgunned. But occupying the ship yards, would I feel hurt the Entente, even without USW. As they really weren't building that much when they went on the war footing.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
That is easy.

Scarborough, late in 1914 dumbass Churchill sent a squadron of the RN's newest dreadnoughts and the BCF against a supposed raid by the German GKs... problem is the whole HSF was running support and the two fleets ran into each other in the dark...

...but the Germans turned away first, von Ingenohl had sailed without permission and got cold feet...

...simply have him stick to it and readily sink all 10 RN ships that were out with barely any escort.
Would that happen when you've got those ships involved?
I mean, they are the ten newest and most powerful ships, and I think their weight of metal is not that far off the entire HSF battle line.
Or are you positing that the Germans manage to ambush the British and sink all of them without the Brits managing to wound any German ships... despite the British ships using much bigger guns?

'cause if so then that's not the "sending out a small force" that's causing the problem, it's the Germans managing to pull off surprise and that would bite whatever the situation.
 

JAG88

Banned
Would that happen when you've got those ships involved?
I mean, they are the ten newest and most powerful ships, and I think their weight of metal is not that far off the entire HSF battle line.
Or are you positing that the Germans manage to ambush the British and sink all of them without the Brits managing to wound any German ships... despite the British ships using much bigger guns?

'cause if so then that's not the "sending out a small force" that's causing the problem, it's the Germans managing to pull off surprise and that would bite whatever the situation.

The German ships were designed for short range battles such as the ones a night encounter at Scarborough would produce, hence their QF main guns and heavy secondaries that would put a lot more shells on the air than the RN ships (3 to 1,5-2 per gun), and it never ceases to amaze that the funny notion of weight of shell keeps popping up, as if this was somehow a battle between 18th century wooden ships, the time of the solid shot was long gone, shell design mattered far more than weight.

The KM was superior in night fighting doctrine, shoot faster, shoot better, if both fleets run into each other the RN ships would be heavily outnumbered and therefore, silenced rather quickly. That is without taking into account that by the time of the encounter the RN had already lost 3 out of the 7 DDs that composed its whole escort, so there were 70+ German DDs that would get a chance to torpedo the RN BBs... at night.

Some HSF ships would take some damage, but they were quite sturdy as events proved.

Basically its the worst possible scenario, a small RN force caught at night by surprise by the HSF, and it came within a hair of actually happening.
 
Reducing size of the British Fleet can be done in 5 ways:

5. Natural disaster

5. Imo the most likely possibility that would give Germany the advantage against the HSF. That said, this was also very unlikely - ASB. This would require some sort of freak event to occur, something along the lines of Halsey sailing the US Carrier Fleet into Typhoon Cobra in 1944. Problem here is that, there are literally no tropical storms that have been that far north. Perhaps an extremely heavy North Sea storm, or a tsunami from a freak earthquake.

Tunguska meteor misses Earth on first pass and hits Scapa Flow just after the QEs and Rs have commissioned. Can't really think of any other way for the HSF to win.

Sorry, that's ASB, isn't it.

Apology, should have credited Agent Boot's 'Loud Blast That Tears The Skies' as inspiration :)
 
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Okay, I'll make a HSF win at Jutland with worst plausible scenario for British

The weather is better, and there are Zeppelins scouting the seas (Zeppelins were called off because of storms). Scheer knows in advance not only that the GF is at sea, but also their position and course. Beatty is beaten pretty much as in OTL, maybe some more casualties if HSF can organize itself better, but nothing major. Then, at Run to the North, the Zeppelin really helps. Scheer is able to form a battle line and cross the T astern from the GF before they can organize themselves, and executing a quick 180 turn (as they did OTL to evade British ships) to cross the T again, fire a torpedo salvo to prevent British fleet turning too fast to chase them, and disengage to southsoutheast, while GF moves around trying to block the German fleet as OTL. Germans continue evading British fleet until nightfall, and then again as in OTL try to move astern from Jellicoe while flotillas try to cause some damage in the cover of the night. HOWEVER this time Gott ist mit Germans, and the torpedo boats and destroyers get fairly close to British ships undetected, and with luck and night training manage to spot the enemy ships and score a respectable number of hits, maybe even including Jellicoe. Meanwhile German main force has went past British cruisers as OTL. British forces are in chaos and the German flotillas are able to escape later with low losses. This scenario requires very much luck, BUT there have been more lucky victories in history and this is still pretty plausible imho. Someone can correct me if I am wrong. This is based on what I learned from another Jutland thread.
 
The weather is better, and there are Zeppelins scouting the seas (Zeppelins were called off because of storms). Scheer knows in advance not only that the GF is at sea, but also their position and course. Beatty is beaten pretty much as in OTL, maybe some more casualties if HSF can organize itself better, but nothing major. Then, at Run to the North, the Zeppelin really helps. Scheer is able to form a battle line and cross the T astern from the GF before they can organize themselves, and executing a quick 180 turn (as they did OTL to evade British ships) to cross the T again, fire a torpedo salvo to prevent British fleet turning too fast to chase them, and disengage to southsoutheast, while GF moves around trying to block the German fleet as OTL. Germans continue evading British fleet until nightfall, and then again as in OTL try to move astern from Jellicoe while flotillas try to cause some damage in the cover of the night. HOWEVER this time Gott ist mit Germans, and the torpedo boats and destroyers get fairly close to British ships undetected, and with luck and night training manage to spot the enemy ships and score a respectable number of hits, maybe even including Jellicoe. Meanwhile German main force has went past British cruisers as OTL. British forces are in chaos and the German flotillas are able to escape later with low losses. This scenario requires very much luck, BUT there have been more lucky victories in history and this is still pretty plausible imho. Someone can correct me if I am wrong. This is based on what I learned from another Jutland thread.

No this requires more than mere luck.

A grand total of 4 battleships were sunk by surface vessel torpedo attack in World War 1, three of them the Dreadnought Szent Istvan, the pre-dreadnoughts Goliath and Wien were in were in coastal waters which likely restricted manoeuvrability Goliath was actually anchored. Only the Pommern which was torpedoed by the British at Jutland was actually sunk on the high seas.

An interesting point to note is that Luigi Rizzo was the man responsible for first the Wien and then the Svent Istvan sinkings, so one man achieved half the entire surface vessel launched successful torpedo sinkings of battleships in the entire war and he was Italian.
 
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I had understood that the German flotillas had practiced night fighting, and with moderate luck and by knowing the positions and course of British formation up until nightfall could score some torpedo hits. British flotillas were in the rear of the formation so British ships were vulnerable, even though they were in loose formation. And they don't necessarily need to sink British ships, heavy damage will put them out of commission for a while.
 

JAG88

Banned
I had understood that the German flotillas had practiced night fighting, and with moderate luck and by knowing the positions and course of British formation up until nightfall could score some torpedo hits. British flotillas were in the rear of the formation so British ships were vulnerable, even though they were in loose formation. And they don't necessarily need to sink British ships, heavy damage will put them out of commission for a while.

Ye, they certainly practiced and were optimized for it, they chose their paint color for night, not day operations, they practiced night attacks at speeds that would not allow glare to come out of the funnels (coal fired ones), they emphasized not making the attacks and launching obvious to the target using surprise and concealment.

So yeah, they would certainly do much better than the RN considering that the Germans judged RN DD attacks went in too close, the ships were badly blacked out making spotting them easier and didnt try to mask their operations in any way.
 
The High Seas Fleet tended to drag their predreadnoughts out (as they did at Jutland); it's possible that they may either score a lucky hit or two or serve to draw fire away from the German dreadnoughts for a crucial moment. It's also possible that they'll just slow the entire German battle line and cause more problems than they could ever solve, though.

As they did at Jutland. I'm not saying they were entirely to blame for the T getting crossed twice but slowing the fleet down by 1/7 can't have helped.
 
medium damage, high results

It's not the raw scale of the win that's critical, but how people perceive it. A perceived defeat--especially before the Italian declaration of war--could have far reaching impact. The more nervous the British feel about the fleet, the more resources go to rebuilding, repairing, and building the fleet, and less for the army. That can make the French nervous as well.

If Italy is still neutral, and the people are talking about a major defeat for the Royal Navy, even if it's not as major as people think, they might just wait...

In short, although it would take a lot (miracle at Skaggerak is always possible) to smash the Grand Fleet, a big enough victory to change the course of the war is possible.

A much longer shot: There was some experimenting with radio detection of ships in the pre Great War era, in Germany. If it was just advanced enough that the Hoscheseeflotte knows the British are there--and is at battle stations, and the British are in cruise formation, caught by surprise, then it's a slaughter.
 
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