what is consequence of British loss 10 against zero German loss in battle/ship-cruise

Just finished reading "Voices from Jutland" (Jim Crossley) and was surprised by the statement that the RN BBs could not use their primary & secondary guns at the same time, as it was the same men who were meant to be manning both - the assumption being that they would only have one problem at a time!

The HSF fully manned both primary turrets & secondary batteries with separate gun crews.

Is this is correct then in the OP the RN would not be able to fire at both HSF BBs & BCs while fending off the TBs / DDs - unless, of course, they denuded the bow turrets of men to man the secondary casements.

Has anyone else found a separate source for this?

Never heard of this - I have heard that there were insufficient naval gun crews to man all the guns as traditionally the Royal Marines manned at least one of the main guns and some secondaries.
 
Just finished reading "Voices from Jutland" (Jim Crossley) and was surprised by the statement that the RN BBs could not use their primary & secondary guns at the same time, as it was the same men who were meant to be manning both - the assumption being that they would only have one problem at a time!

The HSF fully manned both primary turrets & secondary batteries with separate gun crews.

Is this is correct then in the OP the RN would not be able to fire at both HSF BBs & BCs while fending off the TBs / DDs - unless, of course, they denuded the bow turrets of men to man the secondary casements.

Has anyone else found a separate source for this?

Never heard of this - I have heard that there were insufficient naval gun crews to man all the guns as traditionally the Royal Marines manned at least one of the main guns and some secondaries.


The confusion may lie in the fact that the Germans employed their secondaries against battleship targets while the British thought that was just silly however given the ammunition expended by the British secondaries if the Brits were having to run crews between guns they were running awfully fast :D

http://webpages.charter.net/abacus/news/jutland/18/CHAPTER 18.htm

If details are your thing. You need to scroll down a bit to get to the secondary armament usage and the tables for British and German hits by medium and light calibre guns seem to have been cross labelled.
 
German crushing superiority in cruisers and destroyers

in 16-12-1914 German vanguard scouting force consist of 4 cruisers and 11 destroyers against 7 British destroyers

can 7 British destroyers make through German vanguard force
and get positive identification on HSF

maybe 20 % chance
 
in 16-12-1914 German vanguard scouting force consist of 4 cruisers and 11 destroyers against 7 British destroyers

can 7 British destroyers make through German vanguard force
and get positive identification on HSF

maybe 20 % chance


Er how can the HSF open fire on the British force without giving itself away?

You also need to manoeuvre the HSF to run in parallel with the British force unless you want a brief passing engagement and their escape. Then of course you still have the problem that the British force will be able even if engaged to steadily draw ahead of the German force.

In addition the visibility conditions are neither conducive to accurate gunnery nor effective torpedo attack (quite apart from even in optimal conditions at sea ships are well able to dodge torpedoes).

Basically the most likely range of engagements all involve the escape of the entirety of the British capital ships. Some of these may include losses to lighter units but the capital ships will still escape.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
It's worth noting that at Jutland Hipper and Scheer knew they'd run into the Grand Fleet within a couple of minutes of Grand Fleet opening fire - in Padfield's Battleships there's an account of how they could see firing around about a quarter of the horizon.

Granted this is smaller scale, but you will notice that much 11" and 12" fire going on.
 

Coulsdon Eagle

Monthly Donor
The confusion may lie in the fact that the Germans employed their secondaries against battleship targets while the British thought that was just silly however given the ammunition expended by the British secondaries if the Brits were having to run crews between guns they were running awfully fast :D

http://webpages.charter.net/abacus/news/jutland/18/CHAPTER 18.htm

If details are your thing. You need to scroll down a bit to get to the secondary armament usage and the tables for British and German hits by medium and light calibre guns seem to have been cross labelled.

Thank you for the link. Marvellous detail that I will take time to read.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Fall of the British Government, Churchill and Fisher get lambasted for causing this fiasco. Massive British program to replace the lost ships. Tirpitz uses the prestige to get more ships ordered but less than the British do. Good chance not all ships the German get authority to order even get laid down.

Secondary effects: With a big fleet battle victory the Germans delay trying unrestricted submarine warfare (USW). With no USW there is no "Order in Council" to declare food contraband. Also London would have taken something of a prestige hit and so there would be some trouble pressuring neutrals like Denmark and Netherlands on transshipping goods to Germany. So over all the blockade is a bit less effective towards Germany. How much less effective, difficult to say.

Short term invasion scare nonsense in UK, less troops sent to France 1915, perhaps butterflies away Gallipoli. Really hard to judge.

Germans very quickly discover that while they won one victory that the RN isn't going to give them a second opening.

To me the biggest possible effect is USW getting delayed for a while as that is tied to US entry. Delay that and the western allies run out of cash in 1917 and imports from US collapse once they run out of collateral.

I would like to endorse this excellent summary.
 
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