With the improvement in RN shells, better gunnery control, better shell and powder storage and handling protocols, and a much better understanding among officers about decision making and initiative, things will be much more in the RN's favour.
Add to that the basic numbers of ships, and in particular the light craft. There will be a much greater number of light cruisers and destroyers, including a large number of C class Light cruisers, backed by the surviving Towns and others classes.
While a lot of folk concentrate on the numbers of dreadnought types, probably the most crucial advantage in ship types for the RN will be destroyers. In particular, the growing numbers of the Vanoc/Wakeful class (the V & W class) will be very telling as well. One might argue that the V's and W's are in essence the epitome of destroyer design for that period and would set the mark well into the 30's for most fleets in the world. With their higher forecastle well placed B mount and generally larger overall, they would be a much more effective combatant in a sea way.
As to improvements in gunnery, the RN should deliver just as good of a result as the High Seas Fleet, if not better. Improvements to their direction system, along with regular training and gunnery practice have been ongoing throughout the war. With the drivers forced upon them by Jutland and other encounters they weren't prepared to sit on their hands.
the availability of aircraft, bothe seaplanes from shore establishments, as well as at sea will have a noticeable impact. A certain aspect of this would be in a recon role, however with an established airborne ASW prgram in place, they would probably be more used to deal with interloping U-boats.
The availability of shipborne aircraft would be an important factor as well. Here again, it would not be likely to see them used in offensive action against warships, but they would be used for local recon and asw, and the probability of Camels and pups on the Furious or even from turret ramps on BB/BC would make things interesting for attempts by Zeppelins to interfere.
As to the American ships, I have come across various articles and opinions as to their relative merits or failings. My understandng is that yes, their shells were not the best at that point in time, and that their gunnery may have been somewhat sub-par when compared to the Royal Navy. Truthfully I would have been rather surprised to see anything different, based on simple fact.
The Royal Navy had at least 3 and a half years of combat experience to base their improvements on, while their American cousins were new to the fight. While the USN were a somewhat off the RN standard, everyday they would be improving. Yanks are a stubborn, proud lot, and just by national default they aren't going to be appreciating getting bettered by John Bull.
And as to be worrying about the USN's gunnery being at about the same level or less than the RN at Jutland, one should really look at the RN's gunnery at Jutland, it really wasn't much worse than the High Seas Fleet's was other than in the Run to the north and the run to the south.
In both these last named parts of the battle the weather was decidely in the German's favour, and the number of hits delivered during those portions of the fight reflect that.
Later in the battle when Scheer found his fleet under fire from Jellicoe's battleships, the weather gauge had reversed its favour, and the British battleships delivered good result, while the German reply was negligable.
One must also take into consideration where the hits came from that delivered the percentages of hits landed, and under what conditions. I have already touched on the weather's impact on visibility in the run to the north and the run to the south. One should also look at the hits on not only the armoured cruisers, but even HMS invincible, for all the hits on these vessels were taken at relatively close range, and with a goodly number of ships shooting at them.
Now don't get me wrong, I am not deriding the German gunnery, they shot well in the battle, and there was a part of the RN that in fact shot poorly, that being Beattie's battle cruisers. Now while Beattie's command had issues with getting to the rrange, probably the biggest factor against good gunnery was due to the poor visibility for targeting the Germans.
To me the biggest fault against Beattie was not that he had allowed his squadrons to lapse so bad in gunnery, it was rather that at no time during either run did he make an attempt to gain a weather gauge advantage.
After the fiasco in the runs, Beattie topped it all of by not properly notifying Jellicoe of relative positions of himself, Scheer and Hipper, which in turn led to the rather jumbled mismash (I would have said cluster fuck, but I don't care to swear on here) in which the British Armoured Cruisers and Invincible were lost.
The main question after the battle that should have been asked was not so much what was wrong with the ships of the Royal Navy, but rather what the hell was wrong with David Beattie?
The Germans should have gave him the Iron Cross ...
... and I have wondered if he was may haps somehow related to Douglas MacArthur .... I'll maybe ask CalBear about that some time.
As to plans for the actual battle, from what my greying old mind is retreiving for me, it was to be dependant on a goodly number of mines, as well as submarine patrol lines to attrit the gross numbers.
However, keep in mind that this is not 1914, and the RN is well qualified to attrit the attriters ... so while the might well get a few, it's not likely to have had a big impact, mainly because to get a needed result both mines and U-boats would have to be so thick in numbers they more than likely would have been noticed in the first place.
From a tad less sarcastic stool, it might be best said that the RN was attuned to these threats and had developed formats to manage and contain them, if not totally negate them.
... okay, there's the background ...now ....
... the HSF is outnumbered nearly 2 to 1 in BB/BC, and more so in other surface types, in that fact alone the HSF is in trouble.The RN is well fed, well trained and has reasonably good morale. Add to that, their American cousins have dropped by for a visit, and while they might not be quite up to the family standard, they're doing okay, and as with cousins everywhere they'll see their cousins get taken care of.
Now we have the High Seas Fleet. At sea training has been off lately, the soup is getting thin, and the ships seem to be overrun by a new kind of vermin known as a communist ... even if they did sail, they would not be on their best game, particularly when its against long odds.
Now someone is going to say the German ships were so very much better than those of the RN or the USN.
Truthfully if they were in fact that much better, Scheer wouldn't have withdrawn at Jutland, and he would have kept returning to the fight through the rest of 1916 and on until such as a time as the RN and whoever else was silly enough to join in the folly was destroyed.
It might well be best summarized by by Wemyss's response to German inquiries as to why if their fleet had not been beaten in battle would it have to be surrendered to the armistice commission ....
"It had only to come out." was his response.
To summarize
it's not going to go well for the High Seas Fleet .... but at least the chance of a scuttling at Scapa will be much lower.
my apologies for being long winded