Was the "starve them out" strategy ever really feasible?

Aircraft can't fly on coal, reducing the frequency of reconnaissance fights over the Western Front and handing the Germans air superiority would have serious consequences.

The bigger issue is that there are a lot more routes for British tankers from Texas to Britain than there are for Japanese tankers from Borneo to Japan.
 
Thats a huge force to sink single merchant ships under prize rules. How long before merchant ship flee to port and these 9 capital ships, half of the German fleet, are wandering around the empty sea, whose edges are ringed by various forces that limit its freedom of action? What happens when the QEs enter service?

So if the sea is empty, then how would Britain be supplied with anything? Just stop importing?

And if the North Atlantic is "ringed" with "various forces" that are strong enough to limit Hipper's freedom of action with 5 BC's and 4 23kt Kaisers, then that's about 12 BC's in the Americas, 12 BC's off South America, and 12 BC's at Ireland. No problem...unless, what if Britain does not have 36 BC's to send out? Also, with 36 British capital ships now not guarding the North Sea, what if Scheer e isn't willing to stay in port? Can Jellicoe defeat Scheer's 12 dreadnoughts if he's down 36 of his own? Here's an idea that might actually be what would happen - the British can't defend the UK and their sea lanes at the same time. Therefore, Hipper would have to be allowed to run the table wherever he went, with the British trying to steer its ships around him as best as possible.

When the QE's enter service then Beatty could form a squadron strong enough to tackle the hypothetical squadron we are talking of - 14 to 9. But the Atlantic is a pretty big place too.

RN Admirals who flee get shot for cowardice. The commanders of these forces, which are of course stationed close to concentrations of shipping, will at least try to damage these German ships and slow them down for more powerful forces to deal with.

What RN admiral in WW1 or WW2 got shot for cowardice?

It all sound so easy if you forget that you're pitting 9 ships against 100. Thats a recipe for defeat in detail, which is why no country tried it.

I think is that the Royal Navy miscalculated the real chances of defeat in WW1. It got lucky on the core assumption - that the HSF was a glorified sit-in-port-and-look-pretty-for-the-Kaiser toy fleet - was actually the case.
 
Well actually it will be quite a long list because the RN will lay something down to do exactly that as soon as the Germans commence these Wunderkaisers. The thing is that British building being faster due to the more developed infrastructure and deeper pockets of the British state the British answer would likely also have been working up for longer.

We went pretty quickly from the 23kt / 16,000nm Kaisers being a totally dumb idea because they can't go toe to toe with a British fleet twice their numbers in the North Sea, to the British either responding properly before the war or facing potentially dire consequences. Very tough for the British to screw up the naval balance of power if the Germans build 21kt North Sea ships. Much easier for the British to make a big mistake if the Germans are actually faster and longer ranged than the British believed while building 21kt replies. Because in the first instance any 21kt Iron Duke will do, while in the second instance, a 21kt Iron Duke is useless.


The thing is in real life all that needs happen is that one smaller ship gets a shot below the waterline outside or even under the belt and whilst in battle the damage control team will fix the flooding issue no problem until you get back to port you no longer have a 23 knot ship.

Correct. Then again, an actual battle squadron showing up at a poorly protected overseas port might sink 200,000 tons of shipping in one day. So, risks on both sides.

More importantly the ocean is a big place and having all 9 ships together is just not that effective a way to find stuff.

Sure, just move Halifax around so that the Germans can't find it and its choked port and approaches. Or maybe load 4,000 tons cargo off a beach instead? In terms of searching while moving at sea, when Sturdee approached Falkland Islands with his squadron he had his formation line abreast covering a sweep something like 200 miles right down the South American coast.

It is also funny how Glenn confuses the abilities of oil fuelled world war two ships with coal fired vessels laid down in 1909.

I said some pages ago that the HSF should have built the Kaisers, etc, with 3 boilers capable of firing either coal or oil so that cruising could be done more on oil, saving the coal and reducing the need for coaling stops. How was it that Churchill had the brains to build the QE's with oil fired boilers but Tirpitz didn't have the brains to put in a trio of dual-capable boilers per battleship? Because Tirpitz was the wrong man for the job and Churchill was the right man for the job.

So he either has the nine scattered and doing good anti-commerce work but getting picked off....

Actually a formation in line abreast sweeping through a sea lane would be a dragnet maybe 200 miles wide travelling 300nm a day at cruise speeds. That's 60,000 square miles a day...how much searching do you think those ships could do sitting in port in Germany?
 
Sadly in my old age I've become a real killjoy when it comes to cool shit. As much as I love big fast ships and wish they'd succeed the inescapable logic of a big fleet gets me every time these days.

Dunno, you seem able to escape the logic of how bloody big the Atlantic is, so why not?
 
So what do people think in this scenario: sometime post 1915 spring. Germany is finally able to break French lines and push the front so that they control from Paris to Nantes and north, maybe the line is further south, maybe the French throw in the towel and seek terms maybe they chose to keep on fighting in the south

The UK decides to keep on fighting, with their army either being forced south, evacuated to England or a mix. Either way the land situation is such that Germany has the ports all the way to Brest under their control in operational condition and with sufficient defenses to protect any ships residing there. In that situation do we think it is plausible for the Germans to
A) break the distant blockade
B) manage to reduce or stop supplies to the point UK is forced to sue for peace.

The big reason I ask is that it seems that in general that 1940s Germany didn't have the naval power to do it, and WW1 Germany did not have the geography to try more.

So I am curious that if they had a base in Brest or somewhere around there and only focusing on the naval side what could and would Germany do and what could UK do to counter that?
 
Perusing the thread I see examinations of surface raiding in terms of naval capacities. What has not been mentioned is Intelligence. I was watching an excellent lecture on Von Spee and the speaker, upon an extremely large map of the Pacific showed the area that could be seen from a warship in best conditions. It was a tiny dot lost almost to sight. At this period there was no option of effective reconnaissance to identify either targets nor opposing warships. I would suggest that a cheap enhancement of surface commerce raiding would be a really good worldwide intelligence system to report on timings and directions of targets and warships, a swift communications system (?) to pass this to the commerce raiders in real time and raiding vessels built to out run and outlast their opposition rather then out fight them yet able to overwhelm any target. In addition preplan an extensive network of commercial commerce raiders as a civilian maritime Standing Order. That latter will take some thinking about but why break out into the open oceans from a blockaded Germany when you have ships out there already avoiding capture but an international naval intelligence network can be a standing item.

There would be a lot (!) of detail to work this out but it changes USW in the North Atlantic into a global legal commerce blockade at a distance. Sinking or seizing a ship load of rubber is easier off Malaya or Brazil than off Britain. The Royal Navy and French Navy has to disperse it's forces across the globe in reaction and operate away from swift reinforcement. Increased insurance costs alone deplete Britain and France's already restricted foreign exchange. Delayed or diverted voyages reduce delivery capacity in a form of mission kill. Foreign vessels will be more reluctance to engage in Entente trade.

Ideally a POD at the Dreadnought stage to make a wholesale change from willy waving competing with the Royal Navy in battle in the North Sea to the unglamorous sheer hard work winning a war by maritime trade attrition. Bill the high speed long range light cruisers as Baltic/colonial vessels. I leave the nautical rivet counters to suggest how commercial German vessels might be prepared in normal peacetime form such that they can convert themselves into auxiliary commerce raider upon the declaration of war.

Essentially the big fleet option cannot win against the Royal Navy. It can weaken it by losses in battle or in maintaining a counter to a fleet in being if the HSF stays at home but it cannot impact upon the situation on the ground whereas a global commerce raiding strategy can make an impact. The Royal Navy cannot master the whole globe and surface raiding is a legal option that may not trigger an entry by the USA into the war as the questionable legality of USW would.

The Intelligence side is crucial to keep up the commerce war. The Royal Navy cannot stop it unless they catch up with the raiders and the raiders need a constant supply of targets to maintain their purpose.

I do recognise resupply as the weakness in the system.
 
So if the sea is empty, then how would Britain be supplied with anything? Just stop importing?

While the surprise of this fleet lasts, yes, for a week or two. After that work-arounds of various sorts will occur, from convoys to evasive routing based on accumulated intelligence reports which will see imports begin again.

And if the North Atlantic is "ringed" with "various forces" that are strong enough to limit Hipper's freedom of action with 5 BC's and 4 23kt Kaisers, then that's about 12 BC's in the Americas, 12 BC's off South America, and 12 BC's at Ireland. No problem...unless, what if Britain does not have 36 BC's to send out? Also, with 36 British capital ships now not guarding the North Sea, what if Scheer e isn't willing to stay in port? Can Jellicoe defeat Scheer's 12 dreadnoughts if he's down 36 of his own? Here's an idea that might actually be what would happen - the British can't defend the UK and their sea lanes at the same time. Therefore, Hipper would have to be allowed to run the table wherever he went, with the British trying to steer its ships around him as best as possible.

When the QE's enter service then Beatty could form a squadron strong enough to tackle the hypothetical squadron we are talking of - 14 to 9. But the Atlantic is a pretty big place too.

I said limit freedom of action, not defeat in battle, in fact I specifically said that the 14" Kaisers would drill any of the forces the RN had in the Atlantic in Nov 1914. However doing that would mean having to drive the ship at battle speeds with heavy fuel usage and expend heavy ammunition, both of which are difficult to replace in the west Atlantic, so the Admiral would have to think long and hard about his entire before entering these target-rich areas. Is his task to defeat some ratty old warships, or sink merchant ships, and does sinking these warships help his mission by giving access to shipping concentrations or is it better to sweep less busy areas that are more easily avoided by merchant ships? And what about the risks to his fleet, what if the ratty old pre-dread or armoured cruiser gets a good hit on one of his ships, does he abandon it or endanger his force by trying to rescue it? How much ammo and fuel does the admiral want in reserve to get home, perhaps in a running fight with the GF?

Its these sorts of mundane things that ruin the magic ship theory. A big sexy raid doesn't have the effect of months and months of grinding uboat patrols, mining, tboat attacks etc.

Actually a formation in line abreast sweeping through a sea lane would be a dragnet maybe 200 miles wide travelling 300nm a day at cruise speeds. That's 60,000 square miles a day.

The North Atlantic is 41,000,000 square miles and an area can be repopulated with ships the day after it was swept by the dragnet.

Of course these simple sums don't mean much in the real world, some of the area will be empty of everything except icebergs while other parts will have the enemy as well as targets in it, forcing the German Admiral to make some potentially tough decisions about the profitability of his actions.

What RN admiral in WW1 or WW2 got shot for cowardice?

None, its the old John Byng anecdote. However Tourbrige and Milne were both court martialed for allowing the Goben to escape, and despite being acquitted because their orders were ambiguous Milne was put on half pay and Tourbridge shunted off to a shit job, so the message is clear.

All in all the 9 ships you postulate will maybe significant temporary local impacts while at sea but these will be limited as the British employ mitigation efforts, until the RN inexorably tightens the screws on them and 100 ships defeat 9.
 
So what do people think in this scenario: sometime post 1915 spring. Germany is finally able to break French lines and push the front so that they control from Paris to Nantes and north, maybe the line is further south, maybe the French throw in the towel and seek terms maybe they chose to keep on fighting in the south

The UK decides to keep on fighting, with their army either being forced south, evacuated to England or a mix. Either way the land situation is such that Germany has the ports all the way to Brest under their control in operational condition and with sufficient defenses to protect any ships residing there. In that situation do we think it is plausible for the Germans to
A) break the distant blockade
B) manage to reduce or stop supplies to the point UK is forced to sue for peace.

The big reason I ask is that it seems that in general that 1940s Germany didn't have the naval power to do it, and WW1 Germany did not have the geography to try more.

So I am curious that if they had a base in Brest or somewhere around there and only focusing on the naval side what could and would Germany do and what could UK do to counter that?

That's a pretty dark scenario for the Royal Navy should the HSF base in France in full strength. Maybe organize massive convoys and run them past France with the whole GF in escort?
 
That's a pretty dark scenario for the Royal Navy should the HSF base in France in full strength. Maybe organize massive convoys and run them past France with the whole GF in escort?
I was thinking more along the lines of a pair of BC along with assorted cruisers and destroyers that can form raiding forces to sweep the approaches towards England. The main HSF I see as being kept for the defense of the German coast and for opportunities to strike at either the Russian Baltic fleet or the grand fleet.

Still a pair of BC is going to require the UK to shift a good amount of forces if they want to keep them bottled up, more so at Brest which is further from their bases.
 
Perusing the thread I see examinations of surface raiding in terms of naval capacities. What has not been mentioned is Intelligence.

Germans had a good Entappen system, which was overseas intel and supply. As the war went along the British got the upper hand in the neutral ports and eroded it - and USW didn't help either. The navy didn't use it much though, so it was a wasted asset.
 
I was thinking more along the lines of a pair of BC along with assorted cruisers and destroyers that can form raiding forces to sweep the approaches towards England. The main HSF I see as being kept for the defense of the German coast and for opportunities to strike at either the Russian Baltic fleet or the grand fleet.

Still a pair of BC is going to require the UK to shift a good amount of forces if they want to keep them bottled up, more so at Brest which is further from their bases.

Even in its reduced form, still looks like a massive headache for the RN to me.
 
Taking a leaf from the USA builds German blockade runners thread, the British could also contract for these 30 Kt. cargo vessels to outrun U-Boats with essential cargoes,particularly if these are also US flagged vessels.
 
This was on another forum , the study reports each raider sent to sea by the HSF dragged 10 allied warships away south for months on end . These raiders averaged 10 allied MV sunk or captured. However actual warships moved in squadron and were detected and hunted down reasonably quickly. The disguised raiders did better depending on skipper skill set. Those that hung around the same ports to refuel were eventually detect and hunted down. But the captains who tried alternatives methods did much better with some lasting years. These included acquiring sea planes /stored in hold/ were able to search bigger ocean area. One skipper even tried re-coaling underway [very slowly in calm seas]....it worked and allowed that raider to elude capture for years..

https://archive.org/stream/ReviewOfGermanCruiserWarfare19141918#page/n1/mode/2up

Personally I would not waste WW-I capital ships on such raiding missions, if a couple of dozen HSK can be put to sea they will draw numbers of allied assets. However the Allies didn't dispatch major warships to hunt down MV raiders - mostly sent DD & AMC plus some DD. So to draw serious allied warships away you might need to adapt some Grobb Kreuzers . To that end I did examine the historical fleet [post war] and came up with the following.

Remove all secondary casemate guns, the space freed up should allow for better crew quarters and more provisions for longer missions. The deck space above these casemates could sport torpedo banks plus a few 88mm AA guns. But the basic warship endurance is at odds with such changes.

The "Von der Tann" on coal could manage
1 day @ 27 knots = battle
3 days @ 18 knots = break out GIUK
4 days @ 12 knots = cruise.

If this ship was switched over from coal to oil - the endurance figures would be the same as above except ; the cruise endurance should be two weeks.

Interestingly Grobb Kreuzers had cranes mounted either side of the funnel . Who knows maybe those could be adapted to launch and recover sea planes?
 
Aircraft can't fly on coal, reducing the frequency of reconnaissance fights over the Western Front and handing the Germans air superiority would have serious consequences.

Well, from the wiki
29-640x346.jpg

As conventional fuels were in extremely short supply by late 1944, Lippisch proposed that the P.13a be powered by coal. Initially, it was proposed that a wire-mesh basket holding coal be mounted behind a nose air intake, protruding slightly into the airflow and ignited by a gas burner. Following wind-tunnel testing of the ramjet and the coal basket, modifications were incorporated to provide more efficient combustion.

The coal was to take the form of small granules instead of irregular lumps, to produce a controlled and even burn, and the basket was altered to a mesh drum revolving on a vertical axis at 60 rpm. A jet of flame from tanks of bottled gas would fire into the basket once the P.13a had reached operating speed (above 320 km/h), whether by using a rocket to assist takeoff or by being towed.

The air passing through the ramjet would take the fumes from the burning coal towards the rear where they would mix under high pressure with clean air taken from a separate intake. The resulting mixture of gas would then be directed out through a rear nozzle to provide thrust. A burner and drum were built and tested successfully in Vienna by the design team before the end of the war.
 

trajen777

Banned
Anything is possible -- however i think the key issue is the resources etc that were utilized led to a direct defeat in WW1
1. Building a massive navy created hostility with GB
2. Cost of such a navy precluded the Germans from having up to 3 more armies in the field vs France (recruitment % vs France )
3. Use of sub warfare brought USA into war - guaranteeing German defeat

In WW1 they could have achieved this if they had caught the Brits as a divided force early in the war and defeated the fleet in small bites. Teh sub tech was really not their till 15 / 16 to be effective and the risk / reward of USA made defeat a certainty on the seas (USA production and additional support ships)
 
Cost of such a navy precluded the Germans from having up to 3 more armies in the field vs France (recruitment % vs France )

Money, let alone money sucked up by the navy, wasn't the reason why the Army was smaller than it could be. The main reason was not to dilute the officer corps with middle class Socialist voters.
 

trajen777

Banned
Money, let alone money sucked up by the navy, wasn't the reason why the Army was smaller than it could be. The main reason was not to dilute the officer corps with middle class Socialist voters.
That was sort of right in 1905 but by 12 that reason had mostly faded away in that a substantial % of officers were from the common workman class
 
Well, from the wiki
29-640x346.jpg

As conventional fuels were in extremely short supply by late 1944, Lippisch proposed that the P.13a be powered by coal. Initially, it was proposed that a wire-mesh basket holding coal be mounted behind a nose air intake, protruding slightly into the airflow and ignited by a gas burner. Following wind-tunnel testing of the ramjet and the coal basket, modifications were incorporated to provide more efficient combustion.

The coal was to take the form of small granules instead of irregular lumps, to produce a controlled and even burn, and the basket was altered to a mesh drum revolving on a vertical axis at 60 rpm. A jet of flame from tanks of bottled gas would fire into the basket once the P.13a had reached operating speed (above 320 km/h), whether by using a rocket to assist takeoff or by being towed.

The air passing through the ramjet would take the fumes from the burning coal towards the rear where they would mix under high pressure with clean air taken from a separate intake. The resulting mixture of gas would then be directed out through a rear nozzle to provide thrust. A burner and drum were built and tested successfully in Vienna by the design team before the end of the war.
Son of a bitch!
I stand corrected.
 
Son of a bitch!
I stand corrected.

Well, it did get farther than most of the 'Luftwaffe 1946' NapkinTech, and Dr. Lippisch had a long career at Convair after the War, with the conventional turbine powered XF-92,
CONVAIR7002-300.jpg
as well as production
F-102 F-106 and B-58 aircraft

Actual Turbines can run on a pulverized coal, as well
 
While the surprise of this fleet lasts, yes, for a week or two. After that work-arounds of various sorts will occur, from convoys to evasive routing based on accumulated intelligence reports which will see imports begin again.

No doubt all sorts of back and forth. But, a German navy that has not triggered USW is a German navy that hasn't made the fatal mistake of the war yet either, and should be contributing positively to the CP war effort by way of increased supply from the Americas. So strategically sound, given that USW backfired in the land war bigtime by adding the AEF and US industrial might to the equation, while a chippy but honourable campaign at sea would favorably influence neutral opinion.


I said limit freedom of action, not defeat in battle, in fact I specifically said that the 14" Kaisers would drill any of the forces the RN had in the Atlantic in Nov 1914. However doing that would mean having to drive the ship at battle speeds with heavy fuel usage and expend heavy ammunition, both of which are difficult to replace in the west Atlantic, so the Admiral would have to think long and hard about his entire before entering these target-rich areas. Is his task to defeat some ratty old warships, or sink merchant ships, and does sinking these warships help his mission by giving access to shipping concentrations or is it better to sweep less busy areas that are more easily avoided by merchant ships? And what about the risks to his fleet, what if the ratty old pre-dread or armoured cruiser gets a good hit on one of his ships, does he abandon it or endanger his force by trying to rescue it? How much ammo and fuel does the admiral want in reserve to get home, perhaps in a running fight with the GF?

I'd want to game it a few times before making any conclusions on the best use of a longer ranged squadron. A ship with 16,000nm range would require something like 8,000 tons of fuel. A Kaiser could only carry 4,000 tons, so I'm thinking the ship has to be about 30,000 tons as built with lighter armor and no increase over historical armament to pull it off. Maybe 3/3/2 = 8x14" in 3 turrets might be feasible. With that type of range it could operate around Iceland for a month without refuelling. (The other units in question, the German BC's, were only 4500-5500 nm cruise range, so were also defectively designed, at least for Germany's strategic needs in a naval war including Britain).

In terms of what to do with a dreadnought too damaged in battle to try to return to port in Germany, or even continue to function on the high seas, I would surmise a number of options were available. First, to strip it of supply, (food, armament, ammunition, fuel, etc), scuttle it, and use its crew for prize crews and such. Second, to not scuttle it after stripping it, but intern it in a neutral port loaded with prisoners and wounded. Third, to pick an enemy port and sail right in for a direct assault right in the harbor, landing to burn down the port facilities, and scuttling the ship, then evacuating the landing forces to the squadron and leaving.

In terms of potential missions, one profile would be to operate against the GIUK blockade line to allow ships to sail through to Norway or Germany by sweeping up units (AC and AMC) on patrol. One useful capability there would be the capacity to move into the Artic icefields, (coaling in the ice would be millpond calm) but I don't recall the HSF being sufficiently unlazy to have built icebreakers or even bothered sending explorations to the Artic regions to examine this purpose pre-war. (Could a ship traverse Greenland around its northern shore and enter the Atlantic/Norwegian Sea from the north? I do not know, and neither, I bet, did Tirpitz).

A second possible mission would be classic commerce raiding, either by sinking merchant ships or putting prize crews on them to return them to port. Could a prize crew sail a merchant ship into an American port and sell the products? What are the chances a prize ship could run the blockade to Germany or Norway with its cargo, either escorted or on its own?

A third mission would be to attack an available inferior Entente squadron overseas to cause naval attrition, or even to launch an assault on an Entente port, even with an amphibious element, in order to force Britain and France to move large numbers of troops and artillery overseas to garrison their ports.

A fourth possible mission would be to take control of the sea approaches to neutral ports where German shipping is bottled up, such as New York, so that this shipping can move to sea and return to Germany, (or provide supply to the squadron). Or, perhaps, to send prize ships to sell cargo in exchange for supplies useful to the squadron or Germany, if this is possible, (neutral attitude and policies).

A fifth mission - and this is the one catches my fancy - would be to focus on the undiscussed, unmentioned Archilles heel of the entire Entente war effort; its nitrates supply. Germany had the Haber process. The Entente did not. Much if not all its nitrates came from Chile. What if a German squadron were to dominate the waters off Chile, or interdicted nitrates exports, like Spee did briefly in November 1914? Even taking the nitrates to sea and scuttling them prevents the Entente from getting them; nitrates on the bottom of the Pacific are not explosives in British artillery shells, right? Could nitrates even reach Germany, either direct from Chile, or via the USA? 50,000 tons per year to Germany and another 50,000 tons prevented from reaching Britain per year might be a war winner for the CP.

Its these sorts of mundane things that ruin the magic ship theory. A big sexy raid doesn't have the effect of months and months of grinding uboat patrols, mining, tboat attacks etc.

Where did you arrive at the idea it was one or the other? In the war the HSF had the doctrine that the submarines needed to screen their capital ships because they were doing nonsense make-work sweeps in the North Sea looking for mythical RN inferior squadrons to sink. Discard that doctrine and the U-boats and TB's can do their thing while the modern elements of the HSF do their thing, and the older units (Helgoland, Nassau, PD's) do the coastal defense stuff.

The North Atlantic is 41,000,000 square miles and an area can be repopulated with ships the day after it was swept by the dragnet.

Any disruption in sailings cascaded through the system for months as delayed shipping performed no useful task while idle, and then too much all piles into port at once.

Of course these simple sums don't mean much in the real world, some of the area will be empty of everything except icebergs while other parts will have the enemy as well as targets in it, forcing the German Admiral to make some potentially tough decisions about the profitability of his actions.

So long as Hipper's squadron is not caught and sunk, it's creating a massive headache for the Entente war effort. Far more than if it were sitting in a German port doing nothing. The coaling requirements alone to stock overseas ports to accommodate big Entente dreadnought squadrons would be hundreds of thousands of tons of shipping. Three hunting squadrons of 12 dreadnoughts each would burn maybe 150,000 tons of coal per month!

None, its the old John Byng anecdote. However Tourbrige and Milne were both court martialed for allowing the Goben to escape, and despite being acquitted because their orders were ambiguous Milne was put on half pay and Tourbridge shunted off to a shit job, so the message is clear.

So no one was shot.

All in all the 9 ships you postulate will maybe significant temporary local impacts while at sea but these will be limited as the British employ mitigation efforts, until the RN inexorably tightens the screws on them and 100 ships defeat 9.

Sure, the British just phone the Kaiser in Berlin, explain they need to peel 36 dreadnoughts to overseas stations for up to 10 months in hopes of a causing a battle, could the HSF not bother us in the North Sea in the meantime?
 
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