Naval Order of 24 October 1918 put into effect

Assuming the mutinies never occurred as in OTL and the German High Seas Fleet sails out to engage the British Grand Fleet in Fall of 1918, how do you think the battle would have turned out? Obviously the battle would not change the fact that the Germans were being rapidly defeated on land, but a major German victory in the North Sea could have resulted in the Germans being able to negotiate better armistice terms. Facing 2:1 odds in numbers of capital ships (30RN +5USN vs 18HSF) would the Germans have been able to overcome those odds or was this really just a suicidal banzai charge? Or would this really just turn out like Jutland: Damage and a few hundred deaths but end with both fleets largely intact? For that matter, does anyone have knowledge of how the technology and armament of the two fleets would have affected the battle (Wikipedia suggest the RN had a substantial technological edge at this late stage of the war, but this is just Wikipedia)?
 
The US ships alone were pushovers due to poor gunnery (we mock Beatty but oh the US fleet was shamed there)

Jellicoe trained fleet with aerial support in carriers (only 2 but 2 more than the Germans)

It would've ended the war with British being allowed to build several more BB in the aftermath
 
HSF is probably going to lose this one. Depending on how well it does the Germans are going to have to pay for a new RN too.
 
It would partially depend on when the HSF is detected, the weather conditions, and what numbers of the Entente Fleet were available. Also, might the Entente have a chance to lay new mine fields and deploy submarines to whittle the HSF down.
 
It would partially depend on when the HSF is detected, the weather conditions, and what numbers of the Entente Fleet were available. Also, might the Entente have a chance to lay new mine fields and deploy submarines to whittle the HSF down.


Well I guess that would mostly depend on the status of the German naval codes in 1918. Does anyone know if the German naval codes were cracked by the British at this time? If so the Grand Fleet would likely know where the Germans were planning to go and react accordingly.
 
Facing 2:1 odds in numbers of capital ships (30RN +5USN vs 18HSF)
Isn't it more like 2 (Bayern and Baden) v 12 (5QE +5R +2R&R) so more like 6 to 1 (or 5 to 1 if some of the Rn are in dock as HSF picks the date) in the ships that matter to the result with geenboys now issued to the fleet and the larger range of 15" guns over 12".

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNBR_15-42_mk1.htm
look at the down at the "[FONT=Arial,Helvetica][SIZE=+1]Armour Penetration Trials with Baden" specifically.
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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
 
Who cares about how the battle will end? In all likelihood there will be no Sailors' Revolt in Kiel because most of the ringleaders will either be dead or treading water/in British custody.

Don't get me wrong, there will be some kind of Red uprising, but the spark that set it off will be absent ITTL, leading to a different situation. Less of a chance for the Stab-in-the-Back lie to take hold if all goes well. This might butterfly away the Third Reich.

The HSF going out in a blaze of glory (especially in the eyes of the people of that time) might also redeem the navy not least in the eyes of Beattie who was - IMNSHO - an extremely sore winner judging by the way he treated the German admiral commanding the HSF as it was surrendered to the Entente. The whole arrangement was one big humiliation from one end to the other. Maybe it was because the HSF did not go down fighting and Beattie deemed it dishonourable, consequently treating the German sailors as such?
 
A valid point, Jotun .... most navies of the world have built their traditions on a goodly portion of defeats as well as victories. I would wonder the impact on Germany if such a battle, win or lose, had delivered up a few hundred more von Meullers?

At the very least the impact of a more active navy might have made some sort f balance to the army .... not for sure, but you never know ...
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Total loss for HSF

Assuming the mutinies never occurred as in OTL and the German High Seas Fleet sails out to engage the British Grand Fleet in Fall of 1918, how do you think the battle would have turned out? Obviously the battle would not change the fact that the Germans were being rapidly defeated on land, but a major German victory in the North Sea could have resulted in the Germans being able to negotiate better armistice terms. Facing 2:1 odds in numbers of capital ships (30RN +5USN vs 18HSF) would the Germans have been able to overcome those odds or was this really just a suicidal banzai charge? Or would this really just turn out like Jutland: Damage and a few hundred deaths but end with both fleets largely intact? For that matter, does anyone have knowledge of how the technology and armament of the two fleets would have affected the battle (Wikipedia suggest the RN had a substantial technological edge at this late stage of the war, but this is just Wikipedia)?

Total loss for the HSF that would make Surigao Strait look balanced; if the Germans, from admiral to stoker, are so suicidal as to sortie in the first place, presumably they are going to steam straight ahead into the guns and torpedoes of the Grand Fleet and suffer accordingly.:rolleyes:

What's German for "scream and leap!"?
Best,
 
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Archibald

Banned
Who cares about how the battle will end?
Yes, I want a huge battleship brawl to conclude WWI on fiery fireworks. Jutland cubed. Damn it, Imperial Germany sunk immense amounts of money into a superb fleet only to have it scuttled miserably in Scapa Flow. I'd prefer that fleet to go all out, fight and die in action. Germany has nothing to lose.
 
Would a battle ensue at all?

"The most correct strategy of the GF is no longer to endeavour to bring the enemy to action at any cost, but rather to contain him in his bases until the general situation becomes more favourable to us." Memorandum by Adm Beatty, dated 09 Jan 18, approved by Admiralty on 17 Jan 18.

Already on 29 Dec 17, Beatty had stated that "British battleships were inferior in construction and protection - and that improvements after Jutland were only makeshift and did not compensate for radical defects in design.
"There may be a rude awakening for the country" he wrote, should GF meet HSF under present conditions.

In addition, the Germans had changed codes in 1917 and were using radio more sparingly. Thus, Room 40, wasn't of much help in 1918 anymore. They had never broken any German code, but only had read from captured code books - until the Germans eventually introduced new ones, which ended the ball game for Room 40. In contrast, Neumünster and Marinedetachment Flandern had broken into some British codes in 1918 - and could read at least a portion of British messages.
 
Would a battle ensue at all?

"The most correct strategy of the GF is no longer to endeavour to bring the enemy to action at any cost, but rather to contain him in his bases until the general situation becomes more favourable to us." Memorandum by Adm Beatty, dated 09 Jan 18, approved by Admiralty on 17 Jan 18.

Already on 29 Dec 17, Beatty had stated that "British battleships were inferior in construction and protection - and that improvements after Jutland were only makeshift and did not compensate for radical defects in design.
"There may be a rude awakening for the country" he wrote, should GF meet HSF under present conditions.

In addition, the Germans had changed codes in 1917 and were using radio more sparingly. Thus, Room 40, wasn't of much help in 1918 anymore. They had never broken any German code, but only had read from captured code books - until the Germans eventually introduced new ones, which ended the ball game for Room 40. In contrast, Neumünster and Marinedetachment Flandern had broken into some British codes in 1918 - and could read at least a portion of British messages.

I think you need to be a little careful about taking Beatty's tail covering seriously. After all his first statement is pretty close to the doctrine that has been followed the entire war, while his second skilfully ignores the fact that among capital ships it was only his battlecruisers that blew up due to his pressure to mishandle ammunition while the battleships stood battle and received damage and did not blow up just fine.

However I would agree that the HSF would most likely only follow the order to venture forth in the understanding that the plan was in fact exactly the same plan at they had been following the entire war.

In translation the Order specifies that "The enemy will brought to battle under conditions favourable to us"...this is fairly typical command speak for 'it is in fact okay to run like the clappers upon sighting the enemy in numbers'.

So yes this would likely have been just one more instance of the HSF sorties then goes home.
 

trajen777

Banned
The only chance for the Germany is to

1. Have the original Jutland work -- an initial trap of U boats ( they had 351 in 1918)
2. Have the Germans catch a portion of the fleet out
3. Harass or badly damage the Brits with the Uboats
4. Have the German gunnery be as effective or better then Jutland
5. Have the subs be so disruptive that they can cross the Brit T -- the Brits had not worked on the complicated maneuvers of withdrawal that the Germans had

SO Perfect World
1. Uboats destroy or damage a significant number of BB. More are damaged so that the Brit line slows down (German ships slower but better able to take hits) and the Germans cross T.
2. Germans inflict massive damage and the Brit line falls apart from slowing BB. German Uboats take advantage of this and hit the crippled ships
 

Archibald

Banned
I wish someone write a TL on the basis of this thread. Even if the HSF is doomed to lose, at least it will end in glory.
 
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