A better High Seas Fleet for WW1

[NOMISYRRUC]

Here's a table that I made for an earlier thread showing the plans for small cruisers in more detail.

So the 7 ships cut from the 1900 Law consisted of 5 for the Foreign Service Fleet and 2 from the Material Reserve.
As already noted this (in combination with the increase in their service lives from 15 years to 20 years) did make a difference,
because the building rate was reduced from 3 ships a year to 2 ships a year.
The 1912 Law increased the number of ships in the Active Battle Fleet from 12 to 18 by,
increasing the total from 38 to 40 and transferring the 4 ships in Material Reserve to the Active Battle Fleet.​

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Edit: I wrote something but i think i was wrong in interpreting the figures. What I wrote seems to apply only to CLs, which indeed would have been useful if they had 45 of them built as planned.

This is a table that I constructed for an earlier thread showing the small cruiser situation at the outbreak of World War One IOTL

The two oldest ships in the list were the very old Irene (completed 1888) and Prinzess Wilhelm (completed 1889 and misspelled Prinzess in the table)
which were 25-26 years old which was considerably greater than the maximum of 20 years allowed in every Navy Law from 1900 to 1912.
They were to be replaced by Graudenz (Ersatz Prinzess Wilhelm) and Regensburg (Ersatz Irene) which were being built under the 1912-13 Programme and would be completed on 10.08.14 and 03.01.15 respectively.
The next 9 cruisers that were under construction, on order or planned (in the 1913-14 to 1917-18 Programmes) were replacements
for the next 9 oldest cruisers (Gefion to Amazone).
They were to be followed by Small Cruisers P, Q and R (in the 1917-18 to 1918-19 Programmes) for completion 1919-20
to bring the number of ships from 37 to 40 as required by the 1912 Law.

EDIT 25.02.24
A revised table was uploaded.
The main changes are that the building dates have been revised and that a column showing the building times in months has been added.
The average building time for the 33 ships from Gazelle to Rostock was 25 months.​

 

[mack8]

Perchance were you thinking of this? It's part of the last paragraph from Post 142.

What i initially thought was that if they would have approved 20 large cruisers from 1900 they would have gained an advantage but it seem all that would have happened is building 1 large cruiser in the years they didn't, so old ships that would have been of limited value in WW1. It would have also meant that perhaps two of the later battlecruisers couldn't have been built under the naval laws because they would have reached 20 earlier (not quite sure if i worked this right). Unless somehow Tirpitz managed to obtain reducing the age of large cruisers to 15 years in 1908 so that they could have continued building battlecruisers (in this case replacements for the older large cruisers).

 

[mack8]

This is a table that I constructed for an earlier thread showing the small cruiser situation at the outbreak of World War One IOTL

View attachment 889823

The two oldest ships in the list were the very old Irene (completed 1888) and Prinzess Wilhelm (completed 1889 and misspelled Prinzeiss in the table)
which were 25-26 years old which was considerably greater than the maximum of 20 years allowed in every Navy Law from 1900 to 1912.
They were to be replaced by Graudenz (Ersatz Prinzess Wilhelm) and Regensburg (Ersatz Irene) which were being built under the 1912-13 Programme and would be completed on 10.08.14 and 03.01.15 respectively.
The next 9 cruisers that were under construction, on order or planned (in the 1913-14 to 1917-18 Programmes) were replacements
for the next 9 oldest cruisers (Gefion to Amazone).
They were to be followed by Small Cruisers P, Q and R (in the 1917-18 to 1918-19 Programmes) for completion 1919-20
to bring the number of ships from 37 to 40 as required by the 1912 Law.​

In this case indeed it's a bit clearer, increasing the age to 20 years and reducing the numbers was something they could have done differently without a significant british reaction i think. So 45 small cruisers and 15 years of life means they could have built say 3 or even 4 per year instead of just two, so more of them would have been available by WW1. But of course, Tirpitz needs more money for this to happen.

PS: Do you have by any change such comprehensive tables and replacement details for the large cruisers and battleships?

 

[mack8]

Having thought of this more, it seems the germans can't get any significant numerical advantage under the OTL laws/replacement regulatation, and also what i think to be inflexibility of their building program.
So as usually such naval TLs involve building more ships than they were, for this to happen for HSF we have to have Tirpitz get everything he wanted and then some:
-he gets 20 large cruisers as well as 45 small ones, with their life maintained at 15 years, in 1900.
-he gets 6 battleships in 1906.
-he gets 3 extra large cruisers, 2 small cruisers and 72 subs in 1908.
-he gets another 72 subs in 1912.

So the new fleet total to be reached is 44 battleships, 23 large cruisers, 47 small cruisers, 144 destroyers and 144 subs.

Also, a bit more flexibility to respond to the british plans, he should have built 5 capital ships in 1909 in reply to UK's 8. And to be able to build more than 1 large cruiser per year if situation demands it (should have had 1 extra large cruiser built in reply to the two colonial british battlecruisers).

Overall, this means maintaining a 4 capital ship a year program after 1912 as well, and 3 or 4 small cruisers per year after 1906 to reach the totals as well as replacements for old ships that become overage sooner.

Of course, that leaves the issue of potential british reply which is out of his hand. How likely was it for the british political scene to be less favourable to the kind of shipbuilding spending in 1909, ie for the 8 ship program to be pared down to 4 or 5? A saying i read recently by someone involved in the political wrangling of the time was iirc something like "we went asking for 6, expected 4 and got 8".

And on the issue of money, how can we give Tirpitz more money for this somewhat augmented naval program, preferably without affecting much what the army gets?

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

In this case indeed it's a bit clearer, increasing the age to 20 years and reducing the numbers was something they could have done differently without a significant british reaction i think. So 45 small cruisers and 15 years of life means they could have built say 3 or even 4 per year instead of just two, so more of them would have been available by WW1. But of course, Tirpitz needs more money for this to happen.

Re the money. Light cruisers were relatively cheap and the Second Reich wasn't exactly poor. Therefore, the money was probably there. What was needed was the public and political support to have them included in the Navy Laws.

PS: Do you have by any change such comprehensive tables and replacement details for the large cruisers and battleships?

Yes and I may have posted them in the other threads we've had on the subject.

 

[sonofpegasus]

As an alternative what happens if from Von Der Tann being laid down in 1908 all German capital ships are built as Battle Cruisers.
Fast enough to run but able to hit hard.
Could this mean that 12 guns could be fitted to the 1920 class ships?
What would be the RN/British response?

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Part of Post 165.

So as usually such naval TLs involve building more ships than they were, for this to happen for HSF we have to have Tirpitz get everything he wanted and then some:
-he gets 20 large cruisers as well as 45 small ones, with their life maintained at 15 years, in 1900.
-he gets 6 battleships in 1906.
-he gets 3 extra large cruisers, 2 small cruisers and 72 subs in 1908.
-he gets another 72 subs in 1912.

My intention was to propose.

• No increase in the number of battleships, but the service live was reduced from 25 years to 20 years in 1900 instead of 1908.
• No change to the numbers of large cruisers, because having approval for 14 ships in 1900 instead of the 20 that were asked for made no difference in practice.
• 45 light cruisers approved in 1900 instead of 38 and a service life of 15 years instead of 20 years.
• 144 torpedo boats in 1898 instead of 72 with no further change. The extra boats would be obsolete for front-line duties by 1914 or have been scrapped, but the surviving extra ships would have been useful for second-line duties and to strengthen the Foreign Service Fleet.
• Submarines.
  • Buy the first U-boat is ordered in 1898 or 1900 so a workable sea-going design was ready to be put into large-scale production by 1908.
  • The 1908 Law is for 72 boats by 1916 and a service life of 12 years with no increases in the 1912 Law.
  • The result is that Germany has 55-60 U-boats in August 1914 instead of 28-30.
• Exports.
  • Subsidize the shipyards more so Germany secures a large scale of the export market.
  • It strengthens the Germany naval armaments industry and weakens the British armaments industry.
  • Plus that there's the bonus that some of the warships under construction in Britain in August 1914 and incorporated into the RN ITTL will be under construction in Germany in August 1914 and incorporated into the KM ITTL.

So the new fleet total to be reached is 44 battleships, 23 large cruisers, 47 small cruisers, 144 destroyers and 144 subs.​

My total is about 40 battleships, 20 large cruisers, 45 small cruisers, 144 front-line destroyers with more than OTL in second-line roles or overseas and 56-60 U-boats.

IIRC the RN had about: 80 submarines; 64 battleships (24 dreadnoughts & 40 pre-dreadnoughts); 10 battle cruisers; 40 large cruisers (armoured & firs class protected); 80 small cruisers (2nd & 3rd class protected, scout & light); 225 flotilla leaders & torpedo boat destroyers, and; 110 torpedo boats, in September 1914.

 

[naraic]

Of course, that leaves the issue of potential british reply which is out of his hand. How likely was it for the british political scene to be less favourable to the kind of shipbuilding spending in 1909, ie for the 8 ship program to be pared down to 4 or 5? A saying i read recently by someone involved in the political wrangling of the time was iirc something like "we went asking for 6, expected 4 and got 8".

There was British politicians who were worried about the national debt. Borrowing was a political issue.

That said the Canadian battleships came close to being passed and the Indian Office offered to fund a Royal Indian Navy (but Churchill rejected it).

Even if the British government struggled with Royal Navy spending there probably would have been an imperial reaction.

And on the issue of money, how can we give Tirpitz more money for this somewhat augmented naval program, preferably without affecting much what the army gets?

This is very difficult. The German economy was very high employment at this stage. There was also a general oversupply in international markets.

I do wonder if there was federal efficiencies that could have been realised and if a general reform of the empire could have pried lose some funds. That said the efficiencies probably would have been seen at a state rather than a federal level.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Another part of Post 165.

Of course, that leaves the issue of potential British reply which is out of his hand. How likely was it for the British political scene to be less favourable to the kind of shipbuilding spending in 1909, i.e. for the 8 ship program to be pared down to 4 or 5?

Germany building more ships before the middle 1900s would not have triggered an immediate response from HMG. The Two Power Naval Standard which was it's goal meant a fleet that was twice as big as the second and third largest naval powers. Until the middle 1900s this meant a navy that could fight the navies of France and Russia, which until the middle 1900s were also Britain's main potential enemies. IOTL some proposed a Three Power Naval Standard, but the Government's reply was that it would have been prohibitively expensive and not even a country as rich as the UK could afford 100% security.

Which is a long way of saying that provided your extra ships don't turn Germany into the second or third largest naval power before the Entente Cordiale and Battle of Tsushima it won't lead to the RN building more warships. But even if it did, they'd be obsolete or obsolescent by 1914 in any case.

IOTL the British Government had abandoned the Two Power Standard in favour of the what Germany built plus two (or what Germany built plus 60%) by the 1910s. However, as far as I know that only applied to capital ships.

For example in the 1890s the cruiser requirement in the Two Power Standard period was F + R + T = B or the number of cruisers that France & Russia had plus 42 trade protection ships equalled the number of cruisers the RN wanted. I don't know how the cruiser requirement from 1905-ish to 1914 was calculated. Has anyone read the relevant Norman Friedman book lately? That might tell us.

If we use the 1890s formula it would have been G + T = B or Germany plus the number needed for trade protection equalled the number of cruisers the RN wanted. I think it would have been 42-45 as the latter was the number of trade protection cruisers the RN wanted between the world wars. The 1906 Law was for 58 cruisers (20 large & 38 small) plus 42 trade protection cruisers equals a British requirement for 100 cruisers. The 1912 Law increased it to 102 cruisers because the number of small cruisers was increased from 38 to 40. Therefore, if the 1900 Law allows 45 small cruisers instead of 38 (which is what I want) the number of German cruisers under the 1906 Law would have been 65 which when the 42 trade protection cruisers were added the total would have been 107 instead of 100.

Another thing to bear in mind about British cruisers is that no small cruisers were built for a few years in the 1900s because Fisher wanted battle cruisers and large destroyers instead of smaller cruisers. Therefore, Germany building a few more cruisers at the same time won't result in the British building more because they weren't building any due to "office politics".

I don't know how the RN calculated its destroyer requirement from 1905 to 1914. (Has anyone read that Norman Friedman recently too?) I do know that between the world wars it was the number needed to screen the fleet and the number needed for local defence & trade protection. So Germany building more destroyers after 1905 won't result in Britain building more destroyers. Except, I'm proposing that Germany build more destroyers before 1906 (when ) and the same number after 1906.

Germany building twice as many submarines won't make Britain build more submarines for two reasons. One the RN would still have had more submarines. Two the counter to a submarine isn't another submarine, it's more ASW ships, minefields and fixed defences. It also helps that IOTL both sides saw submarines as cost defence vessels.

A saying I read recently by someone involved in the political wrangling of the time was IIRC something like "we went asking for 6, expected 4 and got 8".

FWIW and AIUI the "we want eight! We won't wait!" programme of 1909-10 was the four ships that were to have been built anyway plus the four missing ships from the Cawdor Programme. That is 12 capital ships should have been built under the three previous building programmes, but eight (12in gunned dreadnoughts) were built. So instead of the four 12in gunned dreadnoughts and battle cruisers of the Dreadnought & Invincible types it got four 13.5in gunned super-dreadnoughts and battle cruisers of the Lion and Orion classes. Which was a considerable improvement in terms of quality.

And on the issue of money, how can we give Tirpitz more money for this somewhat augmented naval program, preferably without affecting much what the army gets?

Light cruisers, destroyers and submarines are cheap or at least they are in relation to capital ships and armoured cruisers. Plus there's nothing to stop you improving the German economy while your at it so Germany can afford a larger navy. Plus (in common with Britain) it's a matter of (votes) public support (e.g. "we want eight! We won't wait!"). Therefore, if (there were enough votes in it) there was enough public support for it the Reichstag would have approved the increases to the KM that Tirpitz wanted in 1912 as well as the increases to the Army.

 

[Glenn239]

As an alternative what happens if from Von Der Tann being laid down in 1908 all German capital ships are built as Battle Cruisers.
Fast enough to run but able to hit hard.
Could this mean that 12 guns could be fitted to the 1920 class ships?
What would be the RN/British response?

VdT, Moltke, Goeben, and Seydlitz all had Parsons turbines fitted, then the Derfflingers were equipped with German versions. If the Germans go for all BC's from VdT onwards, there is a period of time where the turbines will have to be British. That means the British could veto the export if they do not like the intentions, or they could build more BC's themselves. Or, it might be that Parsons might not be able to supply enough kits to supply both navies.

 

[Glenn239]

It would have to work absolutely perfectly - which of course it wouldn't in reality

Attempting to trap Beatty could easily fail, but Scheer's historical plan had no chance of success.

And the massed torpedo thing works both ways does it not?

Yes indeed, but Beatty is well forward of Jellicoe and facing the entire HSF with an inferior force. He cannot afford any torpedo hits, as these amount to, essentially, the loss of the ship. Whereas a German ship hit would have a decent chance of avoiding Jellicoe.

Zeppelins were very poor at the role of scouting and exceptionally useless at Jutland - Crusiers and DDs found the opposing forces not Zeppelins - where did the 30 mile scouting range come from?

Zeppelins were useless at Jutland because they were not employed properly. They were sent too far ahead of the HSF, divided into two groups (May 31st and June 1st), and split up to scout different locations. This was too 'leaky' and both Beatty and Jellicoe barreled right through undetected. This plan holds them with 70nm of Hipper, and flying in a scouting line with a separation of about 40nm per Zeppelin.

The reason why 3 Zeppelins are with each of the forward groups is to provide local scouting and to assist in the coordination between groups. The '30' miles is the range at which a Zeppelin flying at 1,000 feet could be expect to see the heavy smoke of a British squadron at speed.

This plan would unravel very quickly - even if the position of the BCF was know in advance which of course it could not be - and the ability to coordinate such a massed complex manoeuvre is quite frankly impossible given teh technology and communication limitations of 1916.

This isn't a movie script and none of us get to type the ending. In fact, Beatty was so rash, so aggressive, and so far ahead of Jellicoe that it well might be the case he would take off in hot pursuit of Hipper without a moment's thought.

It relies on the BCF being discovered and not running into one of the flanking fleets instead!

The zeppelins in the scouting line need to pick up Beatty ahead of Hipper, then Hipper needs to move to intercept. The battleship forces would need to move in coordination with Hipper to keep their proper station, so each fleet and each zeppelin needs to understand the plan.

If Beatty contacts a flanking battleship force, then at 10 British to 6 Germans, the German BB's are considerably better off than Hipper, but will require support from other formations, which would be available within several hours.

All I see is 3 un supporting fleets leaving themselves open to the risk of defeat in detail

You're trying to find reasons why the trap cannot work, when it actually could. If Beatty somehow slips through the Zeppelin screen and arrives in the vicinity of a battleship force, the accompanying Zeppelin to that force should detect Beatty at least 30 miles out. In this case, a well thought out plan could have a contingency. Namely, the battleship force contacted becomes the bait trying to draw Beatty towards Mauve's backstop, and the other battleship force and Hipper would need to rendezvous and attempt to get behind Beatty. This scheme is less likely to succeed, but it's still dangerous.

 

[JasTysoe]

In addition to that i also suggested earlier unrestricted submarine warfare from the start, because what do they have to lose? Every ship that does not reach UK or France with it's cargo (be it soldiers or supplies) is one less not used against the germans.

The Germans started their first period of unrestricted warfare in February 1915, only six months after war was declared. It was a disaster for them. At the start of the war they had only 28 U-Boats compared to the 222 they thought they needed to blockade the UK. They could only keep 3-4 boats at sea for most of the period and caused the UK "no noticeable injury".

What they DID do was to really harm the German cause amongst the neutrals. Until the Lusitania was sunk, the US was annoyed with the British blockade - her loss switched the target of US ire completely. In the end unrestricted U Boat warfare was a disaster for Germany.

Any inference that the U Boats could have caused significant damage to the troopships taking the BEF across in 1914 appears clearly incorrect. The troopships were heavily protected, with Heligoland Bight corked up by 11 cruisers, 36 destroyers and four subs. Further south at the entrance to the Channel were light cruisers, pre-dreadnoughts, two British destroyer flotillas (40 destroyers and two light cruisers), 12 British subs, French cruisers, French destroyers, and French subs.

The narrows at Dover were a very dangerous area for subs for reasons that are obvious to anyone who studies a chart and knows navigation and tides. About three German subs (one had already been sunk) would have been up against something like 76 destroyers, over a dozen cruisers, 16 subs PLUS the French forces. Throwing your forces into action at odds of 40 to 1 in narrow waters is not the way to win a war.

EDIT - the BEF was also transported in about 40 trips each day with fairly small (less than 4000t on average) ships per day, with a total of something like 200 passages. The RN wasn't using large troopships, so even if one of the very small number of available U-Boats had been able to get through the cordon and sink a few merchant vessels, there would only be a very marginal loss of BEF forces or stores.

The Germans weren't idiots. They knew their situation better than we do. Why assume they were wrong and we are right?

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Link to Post 162 which has a table showing the Small Cruiser situation at the outbreak of World War One IOTL.​

A revised table has been uploaded. The main changes are that the building dates have been revised and that a column showing the building times in months has been added. The average building time for the 33 ships from Gazelle to Rostock was 25 months.

 

[mack8]

A revised table has been uploaded. The main changes are that the building dates have been revised and that a column showing the building times in months has been added. The average building time for the 33 ships from Gazelle to Rostock was 25 months.

Great stuff thanks NOMIS. I haven't posted here in the last few days as i found myself immersed in finding out more about the pre-1900 german navy. It probably gets a bit too far from 1900, but the ramming and sinking of Grosser Kurfurst ironclad in 1878 iirc had a detrimental effect on the Navy's fortunes, at least for the next decade plus. So in a scenario where this does not happen, perhaps the Navy would get more funding, avoiding the shipbuilding hunger in the 1880s.

So the basic scenario in my mind is that they get funds to build 4 Oldenburgs in the 1880s instead of just 1. And then later on instead of the 10 small coastal battleships planned, they get to build say 4 x10,000 tons battleships and 6 protected or armoured cruisers, so in effect meaning they get to build 8 Brandenburgs instead of 4, plus 6 largish cruisers instead of the last 4 Siegfrieds plus 2 cancelled. I take inspiration from your thread on the A-H Navy and say the cruisers are at least twice as large as the coastal ships, so they are 6000-7000 tons, in effect perhaps bigger Irenes or Gefions.

This whole scenario being based on the idea that others supports and i agree with that large cruisers and battlecruisers were the most useful ships the germans build, they saw a lot of action and combat. So this would give the HSF more of them. Of course ships built in the 1880-1890s are not of any value for WW1, except their very existence means they can be replaced when overage by far more combat worthy large cruisers and battlecruisers.

My initial point of interest were the 2 Irenes and Gefion, which were classified under light cruisers when due for replacement, while the roughly similar size Kaiserin Augusta was classified under large cruisers hence it was replaced by a battlecruiser when overage. So this clasification seems a bit arbitrary. ITTL i would want the 2 Irene and Gefion classified under large cruisers too so they can be replaced by battlecruisers. (if there is more money support for the navy, perhaps Gefion can be built as a larger ship as originally intended). They would be due for replacement between 1906 and 1911, perfect timing.

I haven't quite worked out what this means in terms of changes to the ITTL german shipbuilding program, but if they get more recent armoured cruisers and battlecruisers that is a gain. Looking at the Hurd table again, the germans were completely outbuilt in large cruisers, 34 to 8, so between Tirpitz getting 20 large cruisers in 1898, and having had more protected/armoured cruisers in the first place to replace, the germans would have build more than 8 armoured cruisers pre-1906 as well as more battlecruisers afterwards. Would probably also means they would/could have switched to a 4 ship a year program earlier, preferably the additional ships being armoured cruisers and battlecruisers.

 

[mack8]

As a sidenote, to make things a bit more interesting i decided that the better HSF exists in the same universe as a better Ottoman Empire Navy as well as a better Austro-Hungarian Navy (i haven't stared a thread on it yet). I've edited the OP accordingly.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Attempting to trap Beatty could easily fail, but Scheer's historical plan had no chance of success.




Yes indeed, but Beatty is well forward of Jellicoe and facing the entire HSF with an inferior force. He cannot afford any torpedo hits, as these amount to, essentially, the loss of the ship. Whereas a German ship hit would have a decent chance of avoiding Jellicoe.



Zeppelins were useless at Jutland because they were not employed properly. They were sent too far ahead of the HSF, divided into two groups (May 31st and June 1st), and split up to scout different locations. This was too 'leaky' and both Beatty and Jellicoe barreled right through undetected. This plan holds them with 70nm of Hipper, and flying in a scouting line with a separation of about 40nm per Zeppelin.

The reason why 3 Zeppelins are with each of the forward groups is to provide local scouting and to assist in the coordination between groups. The '30' miles is the range at which a Zeppelin flying at 1,000 feet could be expect to see the heavy smoke of a British squadron at speed.



This isn't a movie script and none of us get to type the ending. In fact, Beatty was so rash, so aggressive, and so far ahead of Jellicoe that it well might be the case he would take off in hot pursuit of Hipper without a moment's thought.


The zeppelins in the scouting line need to pick up Beatty ahead of Hipper, then Hipper needs to move to intercept. The battleship forces would need to move in coordination with Hipper to keep their proper station, so each fleet and each zeppelin needs to understand the plan.

If Beatty contacts a flanking battleship force, then at 10 British to 6 Germans, the German BB's are considerably better off than Hipper, but will require support from other formations, which would be available within several hours.



You're trying to find reasons why the trap cannot work, when it actually could. If Beatty somehow slips through the Zeppelin screen and arrives in the vicinity of a battleship force, the accompanying Zeppelin to that force should detect Beatty at least 30 miles out. In this case, a well thought out plan could have a contingency. Namely, the battleship force contacted becomes the bait trying to draw Beatty towards Mauve's backstop, and the other battleship force and Hipper would need to rendezvous and attempt to get behind Beatty. This scheme is less likely to succeed, but it's still dangerous.

I haven't the time to answer you point for point but just a quick response - the Zeppelins did not detect any forces at 30 miles and the only one that did detect forces of the Grand fleet the day after the battle - L11 - who was that close that it was engaged by the AAA and even main guns of the fleet and when it flew out of range lost contact with them - so clearly not 30 miles!

The visibility was so bad that the crew only detected many of the ships by the muzzle flashes and while they did give Scheer a contact report their reported position was 30 odd miles away from where they actually where

And then there was L24 who reported that there was an entire British fleet moored in a Danish bay.

To this day no one has any clue what they actually saw.

Also the weather was quite bad the day before the battle delaying the deployment and so the Zeppelins where actually too far to the south when the battle happened anyway.

Again the Zeppelins where worse than useless at Jutland.

 

[Coulsdon Eagle]

I haven't the time to answer you point for point but just a quick response - the Zeppelins did not detect any forces at 30 miles and the only one that did detect forces of the Grand fleet the day after the battle - L11 - who was that close that it was engaged by the AAA and even main guns of the fleet and when it flew out of range lost contact with them - so clearly not 30 miles!

The visibility was so bad that the crew only detected many of the ships by the muzzle flashes and while they did give Scheer a contact report their reported position was 30 odd miles away from where they actually where

And then there was L24 who reported that there was an entire British fleet moored in a Danish bay.

To this day no one has any clue what they actually saw.

Also the weather was quite bad the day before the battle delaying the deployment and so the Zeppelins where actually too far to the south when the battle happened anyway.

Again the Zeppelins where worse than useless at Jutland.

Didn't one Zeppelin commander report that he was attacking submarines... at night?

 

[Glenn239]

I haven't the time to answer you point for point but just a quick response - the Zeppelins did not detect any forces at 30 miles and the only one that did detect forces of the Grand fleet the day after the battle - L11 - who was that close that it was engaged by the AAA and even main guns of the fleet and when it flew out of range lost contact with them - so clearly not 30 miles!

Aircraft can spot single ships at about 25 miles on a good day. But we're talking a coal fired fleet at speed that is putting out huge columns of smoke, so 30 miles is realistic.

The visibility was so bad that the crew only detected many of the ships by the muzzle flashes and while they did give Scheer a contact report their reported position was 30 odd miles away from where they actually where

The visibility at the point of contact being the main battle fleets was primarily because there were almost 200 warships at that location belching heavy smoke. The overall visibility conditions during the day were much better.

 

[Coulsdon Eagle]

Aircraft can spot single ships at about 25 miles on a good day. But we're talking a coal fired fleet at speed that is putting out huge columns of smoke, so 30 miles is realistic.


The visibility at the point of contact being the main battle fleets was primarily because there were almost 200 warships at that location belching heavy smoke. The overall visibility conditions during the day were much better.

Yet both Hipper and Scheer were taken by surprise when they encountered first Beatty and then Jellicoe. If the Zeppelins missed Jellicoe's 24 dreadnoughts which steamed south-eastwards for a day - a perfect definition of a coal-fired fleet at speed that is putting out huge columns of smoke - then 30 miles was not realistic in the North Sea, even in late May & reasonable weather conditions based upon the imperical evidence.