Decisive British Victory at Jutland

As the 100th anniversary of the battle approaches, what would the short and long term consequences have been if the Grand Fleet had sunk all the German battle cruisers and at least half the German battleships?
  1. Short term means its influence on the course of World War One.
  2. Long term means from the end of World War One to 1939.
As threads like this often break down into discussions of how the event proposed in the OP could not happen, rather than the consequences of said event, this is what can and cannot be changed:
  1. There are no improvements to the quality or quantity of the British ships, the accuracy of their gunnery, the quality of the ammunition or their crews training for night fighting;
  2. However, improvements in the quality of cordite and turret operating procedures are allowed because IIRC one of the British armoured cruisers at the Battle of the Falkland Islands nearly did blow up, but no corrective action was taken;
  3. Better communications between the Admiralty and Jellicoe is allowed;
  4. Better communications within the Grand Fleet are allowed too;
  5. Individual commanders of ships, flotillas and squadrons may show more initiative;
  6. The seaplane carrier Campania can sail with the Grand Fleet and the Harwich Force can be used;
  7. British losses in the battle must be no greater than IOTL unless the German battleships are wiped out rather than suffering 50% losses.
 
Paradoxically it might actually benefit the Germans.

The RN would be able to come much nearer the German coast and lay mines to prevent U-boats coming out - or at least make it a lot harder. So quite probably no USW and no American intervention.

The Germans can most likely use mines of their own to keep the Baltic sealed off, so probably not much change there.
 
Even if the HSF is utterly wiped out, the fact remains that the Entente is still going to have to beat Germany on land.
 
How about... the day and night actions go as OTL, except that the GF manoeuvres at night such that dawn sees the HSF dreadnoughts silhouetted at close range to the north-east. The HSF suffers heavily as it attempts to disengage, and find itself to the north of the GF with the route home blocked. Instead it tries to go north around Denmark into the Baltic, but the GF runs down the pre-dreadnoughts and the slow/slowed dreadnoughts, before breaking off because of the threat of minefields.

Short term results. Possibly earlier USW as the strategy of biting off bits of the GF is now impossible? Destroyers are released earlier for convoy escorts, so U-boat threat is neutralised earlier. If the HSF has taken enough losses then the GF might attempt to force the Skagerrak to interdict Baltic shipping, but mines and light forces probably deter this.

Long term results. The HSF lost because it had its T crossed twice and then got outmanoeuvred at night. Better recon, communication and nightfighting skills are needed. The GF won because it didn't engage in messy night fighting, and despite its communication problems. Could be storing up problems for a future war, there, although I note that the British destroyers were aggressive during the night.
 
A decisive British victory at Jutland was more likely than a decisive German victory at Jutland, which would be almost ASB.

I think the the two related threads should be combined into a single "WI decisive victory at Jutland" and I would be happy to stop commenting here and comment there instead.

Not incidentally, the German plan was to use the High Seas Fleet as bait, to lure the Grand Fleet out of its bases. Submarines would be lying in wait and would pick off Grand Fleet ships, I think with the aid of airships. This part of the plan didn't work at all.

The idea was never "have the entire Grand Fleet show up and get between our ships and our bases and then fight it out." After this happened, they did very well to get back home and were happy with that result.

With a decisive British victory, there is a big hit to the morale of the German public, and British morale benefits, to an extent that is incalculable. It could conceivably end the war in 1916, when the Central Powers were really hard pressed, or have no effect at all. Removing the High Seas Fleet, or most of it, makes a more aggressive use of the Grand Fleet feasible, either for a landing on the German coast, or to invade Denmark and open a supply route to Russia. Only the second idea really helps the Entente, and by mid-1916 its probably too late.
 
True the Germans hurt in morale but it does not affect the war
I'm not so sure of that. Aside from the shock of the H.S.F's destruction the Germans & their allies have to deal with the knowledge that the British Blockade cannot now be broken. With the blockade secure the Central Powers know that all the allies have to do is hold their trenches and let hunger defeat them.
 
True the Germans hurt in morale but it does not affect the war
Germany was not invaded on land in any substantial way in WW1, but morale collapsed and subsequent war effort from the losses outside German territory. A 100,000 dead sailors in the North Sea is just as bad for morale as 100,000 dead in Flanders.
 
Something else: Suppose there was an overwhelming British victory at Jutland, and the long term consequences would be:
=> Everyone in the Empire knows -once again- that the Royal Navy is the best in the world and can not be challenged by anyone, ever, not since the days of the Armada!
=> The dreams of newfound technological prowess notwithstanding, it becomes clear, even to the most ardent German nationalist that Germany is not and will never be a maritime superpower.

So on the technological side, will post-war Britain still take the lead in experimenting with aircraft carriers or will it just concentrate on heavier battleships? If the latter, they could be in for a big surprise in 1942.

How different would WWII go for the axis if Germany had a purely harbor defense navy with neither u-boats nor battleships and a total manpower comparable to the national police system? Would it fare better if the available manpower and resources would be taken up by the air force and the tank squadrons? I know, there would almost certainly be no African campaign, but the Battle of Britain would be an even bigger slugfest and with the Murmansk route virtually unopposed, the Germans might well face the British Expeditionary Force at the gates of Kursk instead of El Alamein
 
Britain will still develop the carrier, the R.N. was very air minded. They were also worried about Zeppilens and quickly realised that the best defence against them, and other aircraft, was to have fighters at sea. This is why they had aircraft platforms over their guns, and specially designed aircraft lighters towed behind destroyers. The need is still there so the carriers Furious, Argus and Vindictive would still be built with Eagle and Hermes coming fairly soon after the war. Two possible P.O.Ds leading to a definite British victory could be 1. H.M.S. Campania receiving the signal to sail along with the rest of the Grand Fleet & 2 Rutland's Radio working so he could warn Beatty about the approaching High Seas Fleet.
 
With no German fleet left to speak of Britain can push far more effort into combating U-boats, thus probably reducing their own maritime expenditure to keep supplies flowing.
 
Germany was not invaded on land in any substantial way in WW1, but morale collapsed and subsequent war effort from the losses outside German territory. A 100,000 dead sailors in the North Sea is just as bad for morale as 100,000 dead in Flanders.

How sure are you about that figure?

I thought the total number of German sailors at Jutland was only around 45,000, and of course not all of these would have been lost if half the battleships had survived and various smaller vessels got away.
 
How sure are you about that figure?

I thought the total number of German sailors at Jutland was only around 45,000, and of course not all of these would have been lost if half the battleships had survived and various smaller vessels got away.

I think he was just using a random number to demonstrate. He could easily have said 10000 lost at Jutland and 10000 lost at the Somme. The actual number doesn't matter, only the lost numbers at sea compared to on lost soldiers on land.

Also, I think that the loss of sailors (and especially the ships they are on) is actually far more damaging for morale for the civilian's than the loss of a far greater number of soldiers fighting in another country. The reason being, soldier's deaths can be hidden from the public to a certain extent, as the public don't know what's happening at the front, while the loss of the ships and sailors can't be hidden, because their ports are located within sight of civilian's, and while the Navy might be able to hide the truth for a short while, empty berths are still empty berths and the lack of ships for them (especially of the high profile ships like the Battleships) will be questioned very quickly
 

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HMS Pinafore on the Naval Fiction Board produced a decisive (think 6 BBs + 4 BCs sunk along with most CLs with RN losing 3 ACs with several BCs badly damaged but not lost). The main driver was the tightening up of anti-flash measures - which IIRC Lion's gunnery officer had already instigated by Jutland but had not spread the word among the Battlecruiser Fleet - and a minor increase in quality of British shells. It is undeniably a RN wank but even then it was not a complete crushing of the HSF.
 
HMS Pinafore on the Naval Fiction Board produced a decisive (think 6 BBs + 4 BCs sunk along with most CLs with RN losing 3 ACs with several BCs badly damaged but not lost). The main driver was the tightening up of anti-flash measures - which IIRC Lion's gunnery officer had already instigated by Jutland but had not spread the word among the Battlecruiser Fleet - and a minor increase in quality of British shells. It is undeniably a RN wank but even then it was not a complete crushing of the HSF.

All that is needed for a major RN victory is for Jellicoe's battleships to actually open fire on targets that were parading right in front of their gun sights during the night action.

For a German major victory, have Evan-Thomas never get his order to reverse course at the end of the run to the south - that automaton would probably have sailed his 4 QE Class battleships straight into the center of the High Seas Fleet.
 
HMS Pinafore on the Naval Fiction Board produced a decisive (think 6 BBs + 4 BCs sunk along with most CLs with RN losing 3 ACs with several BCs badly damaged but not lost). The main driver was the tightening up of anti-flash measures - which IIRC Lion's gunnery officer had already instigated by Jutland but had not spread the word among the Battlecruiser Fleet - and a minor increase in quality of British shells. It is undeniably a RN wank but even then it was not a complete crushing of the HSF.

Have you got a link to that?
 
It is undeniably a RN wank but even then it was not a complete crushing of the HSF.
As wanks go, though, it's quite innocuous. Questions had actually been asked about the effectiveness of AP shells prewar - by Jellicoe no less. The anti-flash precautions were just a matter of doing things properly, as Captain Grant made clear in his memoirs. All it needs is for a few people to do their damn jobs.
 
I think he was just using a random number to demonstrate. He could easily have said 10000 lost at Jutland and 10000 lost at the Somme. The actual number doesn't matter, only the lost numbers at sea compared to on lost soldiers on land.

Also, I think that the loss of sailors (and especially the ships they are on) is actually far more damaging for morale for the civilian's than the loss of a far greater number of soldiers fighting in another country. The reason being, soldier's deaths can be hidden from the public to a certain extent, as the public don't know what's happening at the front, while the loss of the ships and sailors can't be hidden, because their ports are located within sight of civilian's, and while the Navy might be able to hide the truth for a short while, empty berths are still empty berths and the lack of ships for them (especially of the high profile ships like the Battleships) will be questioned very quickly


Though given the HSF's negligible role over the last two years, I doubt if anyone in 1916 was pinning their hopes on it as they would on the 1918 offensive. Defeat would probably have come as little surprise.
 
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