Tactics of an North Sea Naval War in late 1910?

Good point. Also, with greater improvements in torpedo technology, the Destroyer would be a greater threat than it was in 1905. Indeed with the slower pre-dreadnoughts, the Dreadnoughts will find themselves in Queen Elizabeth type role, using their greater speed to out manvour the enemy fleet. Your point on Radio operation is very good as well, but the fleet never took much input from the ground on an tactical level in WW1, and the RN still used signal flags a lot during the WW1. However, the amount of shells that British can chuck out is far greater which means if the british can get into range, the Germans will with near certainty lose a long range engagement with the British.

Another point is that the canopus class were begining to get rather old: I know HMS Canopus in 1914 was barely able to do 12 knots. Stuff older than that is going to be near useless. E.g Live Bait Squadron
As this is your thread please can you give us some more detail to the build up to the war and who is on which side.
 
I'd prefer to perhaps say "anything with 9", 10", 11" guns or bigger is a worthwhile ship".
Then does this lot count?

First Class Protected Cruisers
9 Edgar class completed 1893-94 - 2 x 9.2" and 10 x 6"
2 Powerful class completed 1897-98 - 2 x 9.2" and 12 x 6"

There were another 8 more first class protected cruisers armed with 16 x 6".

First Class Armoured Cruisers
6 Cressy class completed 1901-04 - 2 x 9.2" and 12 x 6"
4 Drake class completed 1902-03 - 2 x 9.2" and 16 x 6"
2 Duke of Edinburgh class completed 1906 - 6 x 9.2" and 10 x 6"
4 Warrior class completed 1906-07 - 6 x 9.2" and 4 x 7.5"
3 Minotaur class completed 1908-09 - 4 x 9.2" and 10 x 7.5"

There were also 16 first class armoured cruisers armed with 14 x 6" or 4 x 7.5" and 6 x 6".
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Then does this lot count?

First Class Protected Cruisers
9 Edgar class completed 1893-94 - 2 x 9.2" and 10 x 6"
2 Powerful class completed 1897-98 - 2 x 9.2" and 12 x 6"

There were another 8 more first class protected cruisers armed with 16 x 6".

First Class Armoured Cruisers
6 Cressy class completed 1901-04 - 2 x 9.2" and 12 x 6"
4 Drake class completed 1902-03 - 2 x 9.2" and 16 x 6"
2 Duke of Edinburgh class completed 1906 - 6 x 9.2" and 10 x 6"
4 Warrior class completed 1906-07 - 6 x 9.2" and 4 x 7.5"
3 Minotaur class completed 1908-09 - 4 x 9.2" and 10 x 7.5"

There were also 16 first class armoured cruisers armed with 14 x 6" or 4 x 7.5" and 6 x 6".
I meant that we should have a consistent definition of what counts as a meaningful ship - as you note, if we set the minimum calibre at 9", then there's some dozens of British ACs that get included... while if we set it at 10" then some of the German BBs vanish.

Of course, if you set it at 12" then the entire German fleet disappears, so that's unreasonable.
 
I meant that we should have a consistent definition of what counts as a meaningful ship - as you note, if we set the minimum calibre at 9", then there's some dozens of British ACs that get included... while if we set it at 10" then some of the German BBs vanish.

Of course, if you set it at 12" then the entire German fleet disappears, so that's unreasonable.
And if we set it at 9" then the only German armoured cruiser that counts is Furst Bismarck (armed with 9.4") because the others had 8.2" guns.

However, it also shows that the Germans were outnumbered in first class cruisers by nearly 4 to 1 with 54 British (35 armoured and 19 protected) against 15 German (including the Blucher).
 
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TFSmith121

Banned
True enough, but without wireless there's no Room 40

Good point. Also, with greater improvements in torpedo technology, the Destroyer would be a greater threat than it was in 1905. Indeed with the slower pre-dreadnoughts, the Dreadnoughts will find themselves in Queen Elizabeth type role, using their greater speed to out manvour the enemy fleet. Your point on Radio operation is very good as well, but the fleet never took much input from the ground on an tactical level in WW1, and the RN still used signal flags a lot during the WW1. However, the amount of shells that British can chuck out is far greater which means if the british can get into range, the Germans will with near certainty lose a long range engagement with the British.


Another point is that the canopus class were begining to get rather old: I know HMS Canopus in 1914 was barely able to do 12 knots. Stuff older than that is going to be near useless. E.g Live Bait Squadron

True enough, but without wireless there's no Room 40 and without Magdeburg or however they got the codes, there's even less chance of the British successfully intercepting the Germans even if both sides go to sea at the same time.

And as always, the British are - presumably at sea, on station, or in transit 3-1; the Germans are snugged up in port until they decide to sortie. That reality drops the numerical differential fairly quickly, of course, and given the reality the British probably can't abandon the Med and points east to concentrate in the North Sea or Channel or both, the issues become even more complex.

Best,
 
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The High Seas Fleet was not having good luck in outbuilding the British, was it?
And the British weren't really trying in the second half of the 1900s. They cut back from 3 BB and 4 CA a year to 4 capital ships a year (the Cawdor Programme) due to the heavy losses the Russians suffered in their war with Japan. And they didn't even stick to that in 1906-07 and 1907-08 when only 3 were ordered. If they had kept to the Cawdor Programme there would have been 2 extra dreadnoughts or 2 extra battle cruisers available in 1910.

And if they had continued with the Selbourne Programme of 3 BB and 4 CA a year, there would have been 9 dreadnoughts and 12 battle cruisers in 1910 instead of 7 and 3.
 
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The High Seas Fleet was not having good luck in outbuilding the British, was it?
The British had ordered 75 submarines in their 1901-02 to 1909-10 programmes. That was made up of 5 Hollands, 13 A class, 11 B class, 38 C class and 8 D class. 68 of them (that is all except the 7 D class ordered in 1909-10) had been completed by the end of 1910.

Though with hindsight Fisher scored an own goal here. I think that he should have stopped production of the C class after at least the first 18 (ordered in 1905-06 and 1906-07) and preferably the first 11 boats (ordered in 1905-06) in favour of the D class. Then there would have been 20-27 more D and E class available in 1910 and 1914 if World War II broke out on time.

Meanwhile the Germans had ordered up to U-22 by the end of 1910. U-1 was completed in 1906, U-2 in 1908, U-3 and U-4 were completed in 1909 and 4 boats were completed in 1910. Of the 14 remaining boats, 5 would complete in 1911, 5 in 1912 and 4 in 1913.

U-1 to U-18 had Kerosene engines instead of diesels. However, the first diesel powered British submarine was D1. All the previous engines had petrol engines.
 
As this is your thread please can you give us some more detail to the build up to the war and who is on which side.

I was quite vague deliberately, but in general, the war is Entente Vs Central powers. The Italians are a wild card and could be on either side or could remain neutral. This of course would have a major effect on the naval war; CP Italy and A-H would threaten the French in the Med to the extent British reinforcements could be required. The ottomans for the sake of clarity fall in with the central powers, and Serbia joins the Entente.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Here's some further musing on armour.

By DK Brown, 15" of Wrought = 5 3/4 " of Krupp or 7 1/2 " of Harvey.

Now, AP values for various guns are reported in Brassey at the muzzle, and for British guns out to 3,000 yards.

So let's see how the Formidable class stands up to German main armament guns at muzle and 3,000 yards. (This is basically assuming that the fall-off in effectiveness for German guns is proportional to British guns of similar calibre.)

Formidable (Krupp armour)


  • Belt: 9 inches (229 mm)
  • Bulkheads: 9–12 inches (229–305 mm)
  • Barbettes: 12 inches (305 mm)
  • Gunhouses: 8–10 inches (203–254 mm)
  • Casemates: 6 inches (152 mm)
  • Conning tower: 14 inches (356 mm)


Converting to Wrought Iron equivalent:



  • Belt: 23.5 inches
  • Bulkheads: 23.5-31.3 inches
  • Barbettes: 31.3 inches
  • Gunhouses: 20.9-26.1 inches
  • Casemates: 15.6 inches
  • Conning tower: 36.5 inches




German gun wrought-iron penetration at muzzle:


11"/40 = 30.6"
11"/35 = 26.7"
10.3"/19 = 15"
9.45/40 = 29.7"

9.45/32 = 20.7"




For the British 12" gun, penetration falls off from muzzle to 3000 yards at a ratio of about 1:0.73.
For the British 10" gun it's 1:0.68.
For the British 9.2" gun it's 1:0.66.


So at 3000 yards:


11"/40 = 21.4"
11"/35 = 18.7"
10.3"/19 = 10.2"
9.45/40 = 19.6"

9.45/32 = 13.6"




At 3000 yards most of the critical parts of the British ships are not really vulnerable to single penetrations. Only the heaviest 11" guns can penetrate the gunhouses, for example, which means the British cordite is not as much of a problem as it might have been.





Now, let's turn that about - since we have 3,000 yard values for the British I'll read them off directly.


Looking at the SMS Deutschland, as an example of the most heavily protected German PDNs:




  • Belt: 100 to 240 mm (3.9 to 9.4 in)
  • Turrets: 280 mm (11 in)


Converting to wrought iron:




  • Belt: 10" to 24.5" wrought iron equivalent
  • Turrets: 28.7" wrought iron equivalent


British 12" mark VI
24.4" at muzzle, 16.1" at 3000 yards
12" mark VIII
36.8" at muzzle, 26.6" at 3000 yards
12" mark IX
39.7" at muzzle, 28.7" at 3000 yards


So at 3000 yards, the Mark IX can penetrate any part of the German PDNs and the Mark VIII can penetrate anything but a turret face.
The Mark X (arming anything Dreandought and later) is not on the table.
The Mark IX armed the Formidable, London, Duncan and King Edward VII classes - the latest PDNs of the British line.



So I think the proposition "British Pre-Dreadnoughts were individually superior" holds up here, in a simulated battle at 3,000 yards of range.
To this we can add that the British have more Formidable-and-later PDNs (23) than the Germans have PDNs at all (22), and that due to the radically inferior nature of half the German battle line at doing any damage to the British Later PDNs then the German PDN line is actually smaller than 22 in effectives. (The Kaiser Friedrich III class could not penetrate turret or belt on a Formidable class if their guns were touching the armour!)
 
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225 destroyers were ordered for the Royal Navy up to and including the 1910-11 Programme. They were made up of:

42 A class 27 knotters
74 B to D class 30 knotters
36 E or River class 25 knotters, but more seaworthy than the earlier classes so they were faster under realistic weather conditions
12 F or Tribal class 33 knotters, the first class with turbines and oil fuel, but not as robust as the River class and shorter range
16 G or Beagle class 27 knotters
20 H or Acorn class 27 knotters
23 I or Archeron class 27 knotters
The super destroyer Swift
The captured Chinese destroyer Taku

The A to F classes were armed with 18" torpedoes. The G and subsequent classes had 21" torpedoes. However, destroyer classes weren't assigned letters until about 1913.

AFAIK all destroyers up to and including the G class had been completed before the end of 1910. Some destroyers had been written off in accidents by 1910 but the Royal Navy did not start scrapping the A to D classes until 1911. Therefore about 170 destroyers would have been available if war broke out at the end of 1910.

According to Jane's Fighting Ships 1914 there were also 109 first class torpedo boats. I haven't checked if any were scrapped between 1910 and 1914. However, that included 13 built at the turn of the century and 36 brand new coastal destroyers built at the same time as the Tribal class. I think Fisher shot the Royal Navy in the foot here. He ought to have ordered at least 49 Beagles or Rivers with turbines instead of Swift, the Tribals and the coastal destroyers.

Meanwhile the 1898 Naval Law set the German destroyer force at 72 boats and the 1900 Law increased it to 96 boats. The 1906 revision of the Second Law increased the destroyer force to 144 boats, but there were no alterations to the size of the destroyer force in the 1908 and 1912 revisions. Destroyers were actually built at the rate of 6 per year until 1906 and from 1907 onwards at the rate of 12 per year.

According to Conway's the first true German destroyers were the G90 class ordered in 1898 and in 1910 they ordered V186 to V191 and G192 to G197, which means Germany had 108 destroyers in commission, under construction or on order at the end of 1910. The Germans also had built the 10 D boats, the first class torpedo boats S1 to G89 and 22 first class TBs numbered in different sequences, which dated from the middle 1880s to late 1890s. However, I don't know how many of them were left in 1910 or how useful they would have been.

I haven't done a strict comparison, but each class of German boats is a few knots faster than the contemporary British one, however, they are smaller so my guess is that the British boats would be as fast or faster than the Germans under realistic sea conditions and the British boats might be better gun platforms. Up to G173 they were armed with 17.7" torpedoes and from G174 ordered in 1909 they have 19.7" torpedoes.

 
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British Light Cruisers in 1910

There were 52 second class protected cruisers at the end of 1910, but many of them were reaching the end of their service lives. [The term light cruiser, which IIRC referred to ships displacing less than 6,000 tons and wasn't invented until 1911 or thereabouts.]

21 Apollo class completed 1892-94
8 Astrea class completed 1894-96
9 Eclipse class completed 1897-98
4 Arrogant class completed 1898-1900
3 Highflyer class completed 1899-1900
2 Challenger class completed 1904-05
5 Bristol class completed 1910

Plus
4 Weymouth class ordered 1909-10 for completion 1911-12, and
3 Chatham class ordered 1910-11 for completion 1912-13

There were also 15 third class protected cruisers, which were roughly equal to the first generation of German light cruisers, as follows:

11 Pelorous class completed 1898-1901
4 Gem class completed 1904-05

Finally there were 11 scout cruisers, which were built to lead the destroyer flotillas and were of similar size to the third class cruisers.

2 Adventure class completed 1905
2 Forward class completed 1905
2 Pathfinder class completed 1905
2 Sentinel class completed 1905
2 Boadiciea class completed 1909-10
1 Blonde class completed 1910 with a second ship due to complete in 1911

Furthermore 2 Active class were ordered in the 1910-11 Programme. Active would complete in 1911 and Amphion in 1912.

The gap between the Highflyer and Challenger classes was because the Admiralty was concentrating on first class cruisers, but the gap between the Challenger and Bristol classes is Fisher's fault because he wasted 3 years with the Swift ordered in 1905-06. Once it was proved that she could not do a cruisers job construction of small cruisers resumed with the Bristol class ordered in 1908-09. If not I think the Admiralty would have ordered some more Gem class before the 1904-05 programme and up to 15 Bristols over the 1905-06 to 1907-08 programmes.
 
German Light Cruisers in 1910

Meanwhile the 1898 Naval Law provided for 30 light cruisers of which 16 were for the High Seas Fleet, 10 were for overseas and 4 were in materiel reserve. The 1900 Law increased that to 38 light cruisers of which 24 were for the HSF, 10 were for overseas and 4 were in Materiel Reserve. However, Tirpitz wanted 45 light cruisers, of which 24 would be in the HSF, 15 overseas and 6 in Materiel Reserve. There was no change until the 1912 amendment when the total was increased to 40 light cruisers of which 30 would be with the HSF, 10 overseas and none in Materiel Reserve.

In 1898 the Germans classified 19 ships as light cruisers, which are listed as follows with their designation under the German Navy's 1893 system of classification.

2 Irene class second class cruisers completed 1888-89
1 Giefon class third class cruiser completed 1894
2 Schwalbe fourth class cruisers completed 1888-89
6 Bussard fourth class cruisers completed 1890-95
8 Avisos of various classes completed 1883-96

Under construction were the first 3 Gazelle class which were completed in 1900 and light cruisers were subsequently ordered at the rate of 2 or 3 a year from 1898-99 to the outbreak of the OTL Great War. The following had been completed by the end of 1910.

10 Gazelle class completed 1900-04
7 Bremen class completed 1904-07
4 Königsberg class completed 1907-08
2 Dresden class completed 1908-09
3 Kolberg class completed 1909-10 with a 4th ship (Köln) to complete in 1911

Total 26 modern light cruisers, plus the Köln

4 Magdeburg class and 2 Karlsruhe class were on order, but the former weren't completed until 1912 IOTL and the latter weren't completed until 1914.
 
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