Talk:Battle of Jutland/Archive 10

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By the way everyone, i read through the article today and on the whole am quite impressed. If this is a B grade article then anything rated higher must be so stunningly good I dont understand why anyone would bother buying books. Or maybe the rating system doesnt work very well. Sandpiper (talk) 10:47, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

A class criteria:

The article is well-organized and essentially complete, having been reviewed by impartial reviewers from a WikiProject, like military history, or elsewhere. Good article status is not a requirement for A-Class.

The article meets the A-Class criteria: Provides a well-written, clear and complete description of the topic, as described in Wikipedia:How to write a great article. It should be of a length suitable for the subject, appropriately structured, and be well referenced by a broad array of reliable sources. It should be well illustrated, with no copyright problems. Only minor style issues and other details need to be addressed before submission as a featured article candidate. See the A-Class assessment departments of some of the larger WikiProjects (e.g. WikiProject Military history). Very useful to readers. A fairly complete treatment of the subject. A non-expert in the subject matter would typically find nothing wanting. Expert knowledge may be needed to tweak the article, and style issues may need addressing. Peer review may help.

I personally think the grading system is way too bogged down in presentation detail without sufficient regard for overall content and coverage.Sandpiper (talk) 10:47, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The problem with this article is the lack of citations. Much of the battle information is cited, but a significant portion of the secondary info (pre- and post-battle stuff) is unsourced. That's the primary reason the article is only rated as B-class (quality standards have risen dramatically, even in the past couple of years). I have to strongly disagree with you on the quality of the MILHIST review system however - the A-class review system in particular is quite good (and I am speaking from a good deal of experience; I've sent 37 articles through ACRs, more than anyone else in the project).

On more concrete suggestions, I'd recommend tossing Massie. I've never been terribly impressed with his book (he doesn't even have a usable index - in that the page numbers in the index don't match the book), and the lack of footnotes isn't so good. I checked one reference to Massie (which supports the statement that Seydlitz and Derfflinger were hit 22 times each), and it's completely false. Seydlitz was hit by 21 large-caliber and two secondary shells, and Derfflinger was hit by 17 and 9, respectively.

There are also some copyright problems with some of the images; File:FranzVonHipper.jpg is still copyrighted (and is going to be deleted from Commons shortly), File:Grand Fleet sails.jpg has no source details (which need to be found or it has to go), File:HMS Lion (1910).jpg needs to be returned to en.wiki (there's no demonstrable evidence it's PD in the UK - I know in all probability it was taken by a British sailor and thus PD-Crown, but FAC image reviewers don't like "probably"), and File:SMS Seydlitz damage.jpg is not PD and has to go. Parsecboy (talk) 11:56, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Well I think your debate on images proves my point. The article may be be more legitimate if these pictures copyright staus is sorted out, but it will be a worse article without them, so from the perspective of a reader right now they are doing good rather than harm and should be graded higher with than without. Sandpiper (talk) 14:36, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

That may very well be true (that the images are beneficial to the reader and the article is therefore more helpful with them), but copyright is still copyright, and we can't ignore it. Most of these images can be replaced by suitably licensed images in any case (for instance, File:Seydlitz badly damaged.jpg and File:2nd Battle Squadron.jpg can replace the 2nd and 4th images). I'm sure others can be found and added. Parsecboy (talk) 14:42, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not a expert in copy write law by a long shot but doesn't according to US copy write law, expire after 85 years? Given the fact that the war was over by 1919, that is 90 years. I confess confusion.Tirronan (talk) 16:11, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

US Copyright law depends on when the image was published (and is rather convoluted). If it was published before 1923, it's automatically in the PD. Between 1923 and 1978, the item can be copyrighted up to 95 years, and after 1978, it's 70 years after the death of the author. For works of hire published after 1978, it's 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever is shorter. We need the date of publication to verify the copyright status of these images. The other issue is, for keeping images on Commons, they need to be PD in the US and the country of origin, which means Britain and Germany. Parsecboy (talk) 16:25, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I forgot to agree, the article is far above a class B and I think it should be submitted for a GA Class if nothing else.Tirronan (talk) 16:31, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The article isn't sufficiently sourced to meet the GA-class criteria (or even MILHIST's B-class criteria). The general rule of thumb is at least one citation at the end of each paragraph. Parsecboy (talk) 16:35, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I have ceased arguing about these things because fundamentally I dont agreee with the system which in particular mil hist uses. The issue of whether it is legal to use an image has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of an article to a reader. Clearly an illegal article is just as informative as a legal one. These two issues get mixed up but are very different. Generally mil hist has excessively strict interpretations of such rules, for example seemingly significantly stricter than Massie or his publishers. He has written well regarded and successful books which are highly informative. They work. People like and read them. Wiki is a peculiar mix where an article which in its own more specialist way is doing better than Massie still gets downgraded.

There are plenty of other articles which either should be marked down, for example being far worse than this one, or marked up. The feature article [Francis Harvey] has always bugged me: the issue of what he is supposed to have done is highly suspect and likely relevant to this issue below of cover-ups over the ship sinking explosions. History is not cut and dried. With Harvey it is very difficult to say exactly what is right or wrong, just as it is here. A few mistakes are normal in history books: it is the overall impression which counts. The actual wiki rules on what makes an a class article, or any other, are seriously less strict on details such as multiple references than mil hist bureaucrats choose to be. This is concentrating on structure rather than content and does not help readers. Everyone here knows that sources on Jutland are contradictory and it is our own opinions which determine which ones go into this article, notwithstanding all of them might be impeccably referenced.

Oh, and referencing at the end of a para might meet some rule, but honestly, one paragraph may contain several facts from different sources. They normally do, in fact. It is illogical to make a requirement for a paragraph ref. I usually do it if I write a first pass of a paragraph indicating where the basic info came from, for my own convenience. But then when you start going over text and adding different material from different sources it becomes nonsensical. Start with 3 sentences based on A. insert two extras from B and C. Does the para end ref support sentence 5 or the whole para? Place a ref by sentence 2. Now sentence 1 is isolated from its original ref at the end of para. Does it need its own tag? One ref tag for every single sentence in the article? A sentence contains three overlapping facts from two sources. Do we need mid sentence tags? Two per sentence? This just never stops and no sane writer would do this. An arbitrary rule about one ref per para is pretty stupid and this must be obvious to anyone who considers the issue. Sandpiper (talk) 08:41, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

References. If you were writing a book, where the readers did not have the freedom to change the text, then footnotes at the paragraph end could work. In something like Wikipedia, where people keep changing the text all the time, the only thing that works is to put the references by the facts they support. The <ref name=XXXXX> supports this in a nice easy way. I have no problem with mid-sentence tags.--Toddy1 (talk) 11:05, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

The point about having at least one reference per para is the bare minimum as long as the citation covers all of the material in that paragraph. Of course, if material in one para comes from multiple sources, it needs to have multiple citations. These standards are only as restrictive as any academic writing - you have you cite material that isn't common knowledge. It's no different from a typical college essay. As for the legal status of our articles, that's a very real issue we can't just ignore. MILHIST only follows the broader rules as set up by Wikipedia.

The problem with Massie is he makes stupid mistakes. You have to verify everything he says with another, more reputable source. If you're doing the research twice, why not just simplify your effort by cutting out Massie? Other editors have said as much (see The Land's and Simon's comments here for instance). Parsecboy (talk) 12:42, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

And as I noted above, Hipper's portrait is now a redlink because it's been deleted from Commons. Copyrights are serious, and we can't just ignore them. Parsecboy (talk) 15:55, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I never in my life wrote an essay with paragraph by paragraph referencing, yet alone sentence by sentence, nor did I ever read a scientific paper that looked like that or a learned book. References are used for points were they mattered, not to justistify every single fact. You are saying you require referencing of every addition to wikipedia because you do not trust anyone to alter it, which is fundamentally opposed to the spirit in which almost all of it has been contributed. It is also nonsense to claim that in reality anything more than a minority of facts on wikipedia are addressed like this. Toddy, as I said, in reality paragraph references do not support a whole paragraph because even if they did originally, the text is changed, rearranged and changed again. References can never be more than a guide for someone to come along and try to sort out a mess ( ie a tool to help us) or seek further info elsewhere (ie a tool for readers). They do not guarantee anything. In a sense it is amusing that wikipedia is leading the world on a wild gooses chase that referencing is a guarantee of accuracy. It is like saying police guarantee safety: tell it to a libyan. Sandpiper (talk) 16:57, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I did not say I require referencing of every addition to wikipedia because I do not trust anyone to alter it.

I did say that it is good idea to reference facts in Wikipedia in a way that recognises that other people will edit the paragraphs after you. They will add or subtract facts, simplify or make more complicated, or some other changes. If the citations for the facts are after the facts, it makes it easy.--Toddy1 (talk) 17:31, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't know where or when you went to college, but I routinely had professors lecture about the importance of citing sources. I don't know how many times I heard variations on "I'm going to fail the next paper I receive without proper citations." Yes, the vast majority of material on Wikipedia is unsourced. That doesn't mean the information isn't useful, but it doesn't have much credibility either. Properly referenced articles at very least tell you where the material is coming from. As for books that don't use footnotes or endnotes, yes, that is a common failing; that doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to better document our evidence, or that such work doesn't exist. On top of a stack of books on my desk is Sondhaus's excellent Naval Warfare 1815-1914, which is literally littered with footnotes. I've only taken a handful of graduate courses thus far, but in those I have taken, we review books every week, and the quality of the referencing is routinely addressed.

Something else to consider: all of the material on Wikipedia comes from somewhere. If we don't properly document it, we're committing plagiarism, plain and simple. The general rule of thumb I've always been taught is this: if it isn't common knowledge, it needs to be cited. When you're talking about something like Jutland, none of it is common knowledge. Frankly, I'm a little dismayed about the cavalier attitude you seem to have with regards to plagiarism and violating copyright. Parsecboy (talk) 18:34, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Either all of wikipedia is a violation of copyright, or none is. It is entirely legitimate to copy facts from any kind of source material without attribution. It is only the form in which they are contained which is copyrightable. And if that isnt true, I have read enough books on Jutland written by successive generations containing the same facts and fallacies that every one of them must be a copyright violation. There is a modern obsession about refrencing which seems to post date the internet and has quite a bit to do with wikipedia itself. It is now so easy to look something up that referencing is used as a guard against cheating by students. Either they explain where something came from or by default they are found guilty of cheating. We are entitled to cheat. In fact, expected to. Wikipedia is a revolution in information availability, which I increasingly think is disparaged by academics not because it is riddled with mistakes, but because it is not. I did a physics degree. Hardly anyone cared much about referencing in anything I wrote. I would concede though that physics is much more cut and dried than history. Maybe instead of worrying about someone else's opinion I learnt to hunt out a solution which feels correct. Sandpiper (talk) 21:45, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't think you will find an addition to this article, or for that matter any article, where I don't cite. However it does bring to mind the Naval Tactics section that doesn't have a single citation in it. That either needs to be cited or out right removed, its been long enough.Tirronan (talk) 21:52, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Referencing is extremely important for verifiability. For example, reading Lambert's article (which I'm assuming most here have), on pages 50 to 52 one of the key sources given is ADM 116/1464. I looked through this document last week and there is no docket regarding suppressing of details of poor cordite handling practices. In fact, it's five hundred solid pages of material concerning armed merchantmen, mostly diplomatic. It's obviously a typo of some order, but it reflects rather poorly on both Lambert and the Journal of Military History. And one can see that quite apart from selective use of ADM 1/8463/176, Lambert sees fit on page 50 to actually embellish it: there is no underlining at all in Beatty's letter to Jellicoe. --Simon Harley (Talk | Library). 22:06, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I reviewed the article based on your note here. Can you state absolutely for us that there is no subfile title M05781 in ADM 116/1464, what you identify as a 500+ file? 71.72.135.117 (talk) 17:58, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

I can. Week before last I found part of the M.05781 material in ADM 1/8477/308, i.e. the minutes of Jellicoe, Tudor, and D'Eyncourt. Jackson's and Nicholson's minutes, referred to in footnote 81 of Dr. Lambert's article are still in the wind. --Simon Harley (Talk | Library). 19:08, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

You should check ADM 116/1484. I would suggest that a single digit error is hardly grounds for suggesting that it reflects poorly on the author and the journal. You'd be surprised what errors creep in through the computerized publishing process now. Most published authors can tell you stories of having the odd correction cleared past the editor but never make it into the final text, with even the most reputable academic presses in the world.71.72.135.117 (talk) 23:22, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Thirteen years without a correction? I think that's grounds for complaint. --Simon Harley (Talk | Library). 08:55, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

That's simply silly. If you read the Journal of Military History you know that they do not publish errata. Few if any at all scholarly journals do--that's for other scholars to do in their own articles and books. You seem not to understand how the academic world works. By that standard we should really think little of Gibbon and his publisher, since his footnotes contained errors, and goodness knows that 200 years is enough time for them to have fixed them. What is far more interesting about your discovery of that Lambert reference is that no other scholars seem to have utilized those records (or corrected him on it). I tried to track the file's electronic presence down in both JSTOR and Google books. There is a SINGLE reference by someone else [N.J.M. Campbell] to those documents--this despite the enormous amount of work that has been done by historians on the Battle of Jutland.71.72.135.117 (talk) 19:35, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Sandpiper, no, that is absolutely incorrect. Copying facts from another source without attributing the source is the textbook definition of plagiarism. Parsecboy (talk) 03:32, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

You link "the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work.2.something used and represented in this manner."Wherin lies the problem? It isnt a legal definition rather than a common one (ie not actually a definition of a crime, which is what counts, rather than a moral position) but taking it on the basis of what it says, you cant without authorisation use the language of another or the thoughts of another. ie the first part, you cant copy exactly, or closely, the wording someone else has devised. We dont. The idea is to recreate from scratch a piece using different wording but containing the same facts. Go to a library and see how many people have done this about Jutland without problem. Thoughts of another? Facts are not thoughts. This is an issue in works of fiction which are clearly the invention of an author. Do these Jutland writers claim to have invented the ideas in their books? If they do, they shouldnt be here anyway!. Generally, if some point is contentious they quote some other source of the information, clearly implying it is not their own invention. Historians generally claim to have collected facts, not invented them. But dont take my word on it, see wikipedia: Wikipedia:Copyrights#Using copyrighted work from others "Note that copyright law governs the creative expression of ideas, not the ideas or information themselves. Therefore, it is legal to read an encyclopedia article or other work, reformulate the concepts in your own words, and submit it to Wikipedia, so long as you do not follow the source too closely. (See our Copyright FAQ for more on how much reformulation may be necessary as well as the distinction between summary and abridgment.) However, it would still be unethical (but not illegal) to do so without citing the original as a reference." As far as I'm concerned an author merits a mention if he has said something uniquely interesting rather than just writing yet another book on the subject. That certainly does not entitle him morally to paragraph by paragraph, yet alone sentence by sentence credits. If you are going to do that then more morally honest to tag each sentence 'written by sandpiper', 'written by parsecboy'. I expect someone has written a tool to display a page that way already. Sandpiper (talk) 08:50, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Taking facts that are not common knowledge without citing the source is plagiarism, plain and simple. It doesn't matter if you reword the information, it's still plagiarism if you're representing the material as your own work. How are you missing the "it would still be unethical...to do so without citing the original as a reference" line? Fine, it's "legal" to plagiarize someone's work, but it's intellectually dishonest as hell. Parsecboy (talk) 13:04, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

If you want to take a more moral stance than the normal publishing world, that is up to you. I would say making just one reference to an author and listing their work at the bottom of a wikipedia article is very good commercial advertising for them. If your definition of 'common knowledge' merely extends to what the average person knows, then there is virtually no common knowledge in the entire world, including every piece of technical or social information which makes the world work today. No one could write about anything without every last sentence being credited. This is not only overly idealistic but impractical. Copyright is a limited licence to individuals to make money from their own inventions. It is back to front to argue we owe authors something when they make use of the body of information already existing in the world today. The reality notwithsatnding the disclaimers in policy is that every wikipedia article is an original work of scholarship in its own right which stands alongside any produced commercially. A huge amount of original research has gone into this article and many others. It has equal claim to unique originality to whatever book is next produced by a private author about Jutland and has no greater obligations to credit anyone than does he. Not being commercial, we choose to credit sources where information has been found as a courtesy, and for the benefit of readers who may wish to investigate more. We keep records for our own purposes to check facts, which can be very difficult, I agree, with many people working on something. But we do not as a matter of principle need to reference every single fact and it becomes pointless bureaucracy to do so. It is simply impractical to say this fact was page 6 line 5 of book A: the only way to fact check a work like this is to read those books in their entirety where they are relevant and cross compare however many of them have been used. Detailed referencing just doesn't add a benefit. Wikipedia policy is to reference contentious points where especial care is needed or disputes likely to arise.

I just did it today: something was quoting points taken from Campbell. Absolutely no benefit looking at Campbell and confirming, yes, he did say that. The only way to tell if he actually meant what he was quoted as saying was to read the entire Chapter, and I then considered that in effect he was being misquoted, because items quoted in themselves do not necessarily portray the entirety of what an author writes.Sandpiper (talk) 13:57, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't even know where to start. Academic writers worth their salt routinely cite their sources. The general definition of common knowledge I've worked with is what one might find in a traditional, paper encyclopedia. We're talking bare bones information here. We are, of course, not a traditional encyclopedia. I don't know how else to explain this: plagiarism =/= copyright violation. They are two distinct concepts. One is illegal, but both are wrong. Incredibly wrong. We are not doing original research (i.e., looking at archival material, etc.) and drawing our own conclusions. We are summarizing the work of established experts. Are you saying that because fact checking is somewhat laborious, we should abandon it altogether? Why the hell should we be doing any of this anyway then? It's hard, so let's just delete the whole damn thing.

Can you please read WP:CITE? Specifically bullet #3 in the first section here. Please follow on to bullet #2 in the second section directly below. Also, read Wikipedia:Plagiarism, and the fourth example here specifically.

Here's something to consider. Your experience is in physics and presumably largely based in mathematics and the like. Once an equation is proved, it becomes part of the body of knowledge in the discipline; one doesn't need to cite Einstein every time one uses E=MC². History is radically different. There is, in effect, no absolute truth in history. It is subjective and based entirely on what others have written in the past. The only way to write history effectively is to cite where you're getting your material from. This is why we need to have citations for every piece of material that comes from another source. Parsecboy (talk) 15:01, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

[deindent] This isnt really going to get us anywhere. I play a policy and you attempt to follow with a pair of guidelines. The policies and guidelines on this are intelocking, overlapping and widely subject to interpretation. The guideline you quote on plagiarism appears to me to define it as something which would have been a copyright violation except that the work in question was not copyright and is not inconsistent with the other dictionary definition of plagiarism which you cited above. This is not what you are suggesting. The policy on verifiability clearly states that while all content must in principle be sourceable, actual source references are only required if material is challenged or likely to be challenged, or for quotations. I am afraid i still consider you are taking way too narrow a definition of common knowledge. Common knowledge in this context is that which a majority of books on Jutland would agree upon. It is only issues where there is a discrepancy and challenges might arise (as per verifiability policy) that might need references. In principle this is no different to writing about mathematics. I have never objected to indicating to a reader generally which books are used as sources and where they might seek further information but I do object to obsessively linking each and every fact when they are uncontroversial. Sandpiper (talk) 21:14, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

How is "Cite sources when...summarizing source material in your own words, in order to give credit to the source of your ideas" unclear or open to interpretation? If you are looking at a book to write an article (which we should be - no one should be writing things off the top of their head) then you are summarizing source material and you need to cite it. This is not open to interpretation.

Here's the resolution: you can either agree to follow Wikipedia source policies, and this article will have a chance to climb the rating system, or you can not, and this article will be stuck at Start class. I don't really care. Parsecboy (talk) 21:54, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Here's the resolution. I shall continue to edit articles to improve their quality as I see it. You will continue to edit articles to improve their quality as you see it. I dont really see you have one thing to complain about over any edit I ever made to this article as regards improving its quality. I am just pointing out here on talk the pointlessness of excessive referencing. Why are you getting so excited about it? I havnt disputed wikipedia source policies. You are not quoting a policy, merely a guideline. It is a suggestion, not a requirement, 'best treated with common sense'. But if you wish to argue the wording of the guideline, why does it talk about 'your ideas'? I deal in facts, not ideas. The guideline on citing sources starts with the words When and why to cite sources: The policy on sourcing is Verifiability. This requires inline citations for any material challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations. The policy is strictly applied to all material in the mainspace—articles, lists, captions, and sections of articles—without exception. In the event of a contradiction between this page and the policy, the policy takes priority, and this page should be updated to reflect it. . so if in doubt, the policy I quoted, which clearly states when sourcing is not required, takes precedence.Sandpiper (talk) 22:51, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm getting "excited about it" because you all but said copyright violation and plagiarism is perfectly fine if it makes an article more useful. You might as well have said rape and murder are fine if it makes you happy. Pardon the hyperbole. Parsecboy (talk) 22:55, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Paragraph rewrite

British and German propellant charges differed in packaging, handling, and chemistry. British cordite propellant (handled in exposed silk bags) tended to burn violently, causing uncontrollable "flash fires" when ignited by nearby shell hits. German propellant (RP C/12, handled in brass cartridge cases) was less vulnerable and less volatile in composition. British ships had inadequate protection against these flash fires. The Royal Navy also emphasized speed in ammunition handling over established safety protocol. By staging charges in the chambers between the gun turret and magazine, the Royal Navy enhanced their rate of fire but left their ships vulnerable to chain reaction ammunition fires and magazine explosions.

As discussed the cordite was stored in cases 2 silk bags and 1 16oz igniter to a metal cylinder. According to proper procedure 2 cases would have been unpacked just before loading to the transfer cages for loading in the guns. As far as I know the practice was limited to the British BC squadrons and reading Campbell I don't see where this became a general practice. I've already included the citation. How should this read?Tirronan (talk) 12:11, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

What you have said about German propellant is not true.

• In the German 11in SKL/40 the propellant "charge was in a stout brass cartridge case... which covered the base and nearly all the side of the above part of the charge. The rest of the side and the top were covered by a relatively thin brass cap... which volatised, or was blown out of the gun on firing. The igniter... was at the base of the charge and well protected by the cartridge case." Smaller calibre German guns also used brass cartridge cases, which I assume were similar.
• "In the German 12in SKL/50 and 11in SKL/45 and 50 guns about 75%" of the charge were in such cases, and the remainder, "known as the fore charge', had no igniter and was contained in an inner and outer silk bag, which were sewn at the top onto a brass cap."

--Toddy1 (talk) 14:17, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Toddy, I am going to assume that you are not calling me a liar again... it is unbelievably rude. I did not write the section above, I am stating that it needs to be rewritten because of errors and am asking for your and everyone else's input on how to correct it. If you have any doubts please check the article where you will find it written exactly. Everyone that contributes to this article has libraries of books on the subject and I assume when I write something that everyone of us can and will check facts. We can all be wrong with the best of intentions but lets work on assuming good faith.Tirronan (talk) 21:01, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Nobody is calling you a liar. However it would have been better if I had been more long-winded and typed: "The paragraph you quoted above makes a statement about German propellant handling that is not true." I am sorry that you are offended; it was not my intention.--Toddy1 (talk) 07:42, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Forget it, just be a bit more long winded. We all argue about the points here, and it never gets personal. Almost all of that quote was about the British charges and the only reference was to the brass cartridges that the Germans used. I don't have a problem including the information you supplied provided we cite them. However the supply quote up there is too broad and sweeping and the preceding two paragraphs after haven't a single citation at all.Tirronan (talk) 12:11, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I think that the whole section on ammunition handling needs work, including improving the structure, and making sure that the facts are cited. A structure might be something like this:

• introduction
• difference between British and German propellant
• the business of the British silk bags and the German brass cartridges and where the igniters were [with something explaining what an igniter is]
• what the German procedures were on different types of armoured ships
• what the British procedures were meant to be
• how the British procedures differed on some of the battlecruisers [and armoured cruisers?]
  • Captain Grant
  • Dives on wrecks on British and German armoured ships
• conclusion, noting comments by reliable sources that German ship XXXX would have been destroyed if it had British propellant charges.

--Toddy1 (talk) 12:31, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm wondering if we should actually be looking at creating a sub-article. This article is already rather long, and the kind of detail we'd need to go into to adequately explain the situation would be prohibitively long for this article. We would still need to rework the section as a summary of the sub-article, of course. Parsecboy (talk) 12:36, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Good idea.--Toddy1 (talk) 12:38, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Still the section on ammo handlings is fairly large I'd like to take a whack at cleaning it up, there are redunant sections in it and sections without citation that need to be sourced or removed. That however does not preclude having a new hive off section that goes into a lot more detail. I'm a bit curious as to why we'd include armored cruisers into the decusion? The ones that sank didn't have mystery surrounding it as most of them were pounded to scrap.Tirronan (talk) 14:54, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

There are several reasons to include the British armoured cruisers:

• Battleships, battlecruisers, and armoured cruisers were all large armoured vessels of similar size and cost to battleships of their own date.
• The British so-called battlecruisers were originally just dreadnought armoured cruisers. The term battlecruiser was originally an 1890s phrase, which in the 1890s did not really take off, but was resurrected by spin-doctors at the Admiralty for the dreadnought armoured cruisers.
• One of the three armoured cruisers lost, the Defence, had a main armament magazine explosion.

--Toddy1 (talk) 17:12, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Naval tactics section

Either we start finding citations for that section or I am going to have to sugest that we need to remove it. It has been allowed to sit there for years with 1 citation while sounding like an armchair admiral pontificating... Frankly it doesn't add much to the article either.Tirronan (talk) 05:34, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Deck hits and bad shells

Well I finally did read Campbell and guess what? Yes there are all sorts of deck hits on the 5th BS. Campbell as breaks down the British AP shell failures pretty well too, again as per Dogger bank 70% of the shells failed to work as advertised.Tirronan (talk) 05:37, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

But he notes german shell failures too. All in all, I got the impression the 'swiss cheese' destruction worked on both fleets. The uniquely bad aspects was the exploding british battlecruisers. If you mean the question of plunging shells hitting decks, I would point out that shells do not need to plunge to hit deck, just come in obliquely. Trauk made an edit to the 'assessment' section (see below) which I have taken out for now but wants to go back about Derfflinger having her gun eleevations increased after the battle. I recall Brookes has a few reservations about some of campbells shell hit assignments, I think on his interpretation of where exactly ships were, thus hits couldnt have been quite as campbell suggested. Sandpiper (talk) 14:04, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Ok, this is a bit much...

" The Germans had failed in their objective of destroying a substantial portion of the British Fleet. No progress had been made towards the goal of allowing the High Seas Fleet to operate in the Atlantic Ocean."

1) The HSF goal at Jutland was not to destroy part of the GF, it didnt even expect or intend to engage the RN. The Germans originally intended to raid England and lure the GF into subs and try to defeat it in detail, but that operation was delayed (it took place in August) and replaced by a sweep along the Danish coast where no contact with the GF was expected.

2) The KM strategic goal was to even the odds by the use of mines, submarines and destroying isolated GF squadrons in order to eventually engage the GF with some hope of success, by sinking a third of the BCF the HSF was successfully implementing its strategy. Where is the German failure? Not winning the war in an afternoon?

3) I would like to know the source for this German intention to operate in the Atlantic Ocean since it could not without first dealing with the GF, and once the GF is dealt with likely there would not be any need to operate in the Atlantic.

I think this needs to be deleted since it has nothing to do with the Battle of Jutland or it is wrong. Trauk (talk) 02:37, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I dont really understand then what you believe the objective of the HSF was. In 2 you state the HSF sought to destroy british ships one by one until they might have superiority. In 1 you say it was not their objective to destroy parts of the GF. 2 is correct, they sought to destroy the british fleet piece by piece, but the battle of Jutland failed to destroy a substantial portion of the british fleet. At the start of the battle the germans were heartened to hear that the GF was operating in separated detachments (in fact not true) which suited their pupose. The simple numbers lost as a result of the battle might suggest that the Germans succeeded, but taking into account the state of the forces before and after, the germans themselves considered that if they continued to 'win' at that rate, then they would lose the war. Were the GF disposed of, then I would assume the German fleet would seek to operate against british merchant shipping west of britain, hence the reference to operating in the Atlantic.Sandpiper (talk) 22:25, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I really dont see the source of your confusion, at Jutland the HSF did not intend to engage the GF which is why they were nowhere near the British Islands, it is that simple, this operation was clearly not an attempt to implement the German strategy of partial combats (that operation got cancelled due to unavailability of airship recon), it was a mere attempt to disrupt shipping and hopefully attack RN patrol assets in the Skagerrak. That is it, there is no contradiction whatsoever. That early in the day they thought that chance had put in their path the opportunity they were looking for from the beginning of the war has no bearing in their intentions prior to the battle. In other words, they were not looking for an engagement, but presented with a supposedly favorable opportunity they certainly would and did try to take advantage of it.

The Germans succeeded in inflicting more losses, 3 to 1 in capital ships, had the rate held in the following battles then they would have won the war, I would like to see a source for such a statement since "the Germans" is very ambiguous. If the GF is disposed of there is no need to operate in the Atlantic, is there? You say you "assume" that the German fleet would try to operate in the Atlantic, that sort of thing is not fit to an article, is it? Trauk (talk) 00:41, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

I havnt read anything which said the plan to ambush british ships was cancelled. This was the ongoing plan. It was only the provocation which was changed because they couldnt launch the bigger operation. All the submarines remained on station ready to ambush grand fleet ships, and indeed the reason the operation had to go ahead on that date was because the subs had nearly run out of fuel. If the battle has continued on the day then the ship losses would have equalised or indeed gone against Germany. Everyone believed that, then and now. The Germans considered themselves lucky and did not believe that on a different occasion they could do so well again. Scheer states in his report the intention is to break the british blockade of Germany. I dont know how he could do this without Atlantic operations? He couldnt do it operating solely in the N. Sea. Sandpiper (talk) 19:16, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, late in the war the Germans considered sending one of the battlecruisers and later the two Brummer-class cruisers out into the Atlantic, but of course decided against it. Parsecboy (talk) 22:36, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I think the whole section has to be rewritten...

" The German fleet would only sortie into the North Sea twice more, with a raid on 19 August and in October 1916. Apart from these two (abortive) operations the High Seas Fleet – unwilling to risk another encounter with the British fleet – confined its actvities to the Baltic sea for the remainder of the war. Jutland thus ended the German challenge to British naval supremacy."

1) The HSF also sortied on April 1918 to intercept the Norway convoy, in any case, seeing the other bits about the Germans being restricted to port it is clear that someone is trying to convey a certain idea no matter what the facts are.

2) After the October 1916 sortie the HSF concluded that it was to risky to sortie... due to the subs, on the August sortie Westfalen was torpedoed, on the October one the cruiser München and on November Grosser Kürfurst and Kronprinz, paradoxically the RN had arrived at the same conclusion 4 months earlier when 2 cruisers were lost to subs (when the aborted Jutland plan was implemented) and decided not to engage the HSF unless it ventured into Scottish waters.

3) The RN decided not to risk engaging the KM 4 months before the submarine risk convinced the Germans not to endanger its battleships, this should be included.

4) Halpern mentions a RN staff paper in which the RN concluded that Jutland in spite of all the fuss had no strategic consequences, meanhwile the August sortie did in spite of no shots being fired since it caused the GF retreat of most of the North Sea (it would not go S of 55°30¨ or E of 4°). Beatty went even further once he assumed command.

5) AS an example of the aforementioned, when the HSF sortied in October, the GF remained in port unwilling to sortie unless the HSF got close.

In short, it is innaccurate to try to give Jutland a strategic weight that it clearly lacked, the whole assessments part should be revisited to say the least. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Trauk (talk • contribs) 03:35, 21 October 2011 (UTC) Trauk (talk) 03:44, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Given that Halpern misdates the Admiralty orders to the Commander-in-Chief, Grand Fleet, to 25 September, 1916, when in fact it was 23 September, I wouldn't put too much faith in his take on things (comes from his quoting secondary sources rather than the real thing). The "55°30¨ or E of 4°" limitation is something of a canard. There is no reference to that latitude and longitude in the orders issued on the 23rd. Jellicoe and Beatty's reservations aside, the Admiralty would order them where to steam, whether they liked it or not. The main point is that the Grand Fleet would only proceed South of the Forth when the Admiralty believed that its intelligence indicated that the Germans could be brought to battle: to quote the orders, "that a really good opportunity is foreseen of bringing the German Fleet to action in daylight in an area which is not greatly to the disadvantage of the Grand Fleet." The policy is neatly encapsulated in the preamble: "The danger of reckless cruising in the North Sea by either fleet without any sufficient object in view is apparent. This policy is not likely to be adopted by the Germans and it is not one that should be encouraged by the Admiralty.

Periodical exercise cruises, however, to keep the fleet efficient are necessary, and some risks must be accepted in order to carry them out; but taking large risks with the capital ships of the Grand Fleet from mines and submarines in dangerous areas on occasions when there is only a very slender chance of bringing the German fleet to action in daylight is not sound strategy."

Of course, none of this precluded sweeps by squadrons, flotillas and submarine flotillas of the Grand Fleet, Harwich Force and Dover Patrol. --Simon Harley (Talk | Library). 18:07, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

The point still stands however, currently the article [i]still[/i] implies that the HSF were timidly confined to port after Jutland whilst the GF cruised about the North Sea unhindered. The truth is a great deal more nuanced than that as [i]both[/i] fleets decided to avoid unnecessary sorties into the North sea on account of the Mine and Submarine threat - however, the HSF still went ahead and conducted a very successful Baltic campaign in 1917 and the GF didn't need to sail to enforce the blockade. Overall a much more complicated picture than "after the summer of 1916, the Germans were too scared of the Grand Fleet to sail again." Getztashida (talk) 00:18, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Exactly, even if one thinks that Halpern just made up the numbers quoted (which is something serious and yet to be established) the Admiralty orders and GF behavior matches what the author describes with the GF not sailing in October to intercept the HSF when in previous occasions the GF steamed before the HSF left port in order to seek an advantageous position. Both fleets avoided the North Sea after October 1916, and if anyone did it first it was the GF. The paragraph in question is just trying to perpetuate British propaganda, this needs correcting in order to reflect historical facts. Trauk (talk) 01:57, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

My aren't we quick to throw around charges of propaganda? These are the same editors digging out facts that the Admiralty and the Admirals of the Grand Fleet didn't want known and actively tried to suppress and yet you show the gall to throw that at our faces? I strongly suggest you think about apologizing at once. I don't know where it got so OK to accuse other editors of bad faith but I for one have about had it. Either show some manners or find somewhere else to rant. I really don't know where you learned manners at but they really can use a bit of polishing.Tirronan (talk) 02:12, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

To be fair to Trauk, I think he's repeating something I brought up earlier on this page when I said "The idea that the HSF never sailed again after Jutland is post war British propaganda and we shouldn't be perpetuating it here when we know better." The difference he's raised it a more confrontational manner, implying that the editors have an agenda, whereas my comment was aimed at the occasional editors who kept inserting the the old "the HSF never sailed again after Jutland" saw into the introduction. Getztashida (talk) 08:06, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Trauk, don't take my word for it - see Marder's reference to 23 September in the second edition of From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, Volume III, p. 303, or better still see the relevant orders (draft and final) at The National Archives, ADM 137/1645, ff. 322-355.

Propaganda is probably too strong a word. How do you adequately describe a situation like this? The British would only allow the Grand Fleet to fight the High Sea Fleet where it believed it could win, and the Germans refused to let the High Sea Fleet anywhere near the Grand Fleet in the sure knowledge that they would come off worse. If the British are supposed to have abandoned the North Sea, then the Germans weren't exactly tearing up the sea in their absence. One problem is that we know for a fact how many times the German fleet sailed out of the Jade after Jutland. How many times did the Grand Fleet sail East and South from Scapa, Cromarty and Rosyth after Jutland? I will be pleasantly surprised if somebody has a definitive figure to offer. --Simon Harley (Talk | Library). 09:23, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Everyone of the editors here knows the subject pretty well. None of us would willingly push an agenda, which is what got my back up. The accurate phrase would be that "the High Seas Fleet was unwilling to have another full scale battle with the Grand Fleet". This isn't to imply cowardice, an infantryman charging a machine gun isn't a hero just another idiot about to add his name to the KIA roles. The German Admiralty knew what was likely to happen in another full scale battle and only a moron would accept it. As stated in the article this battle was a accident, the HSF didn't intend to happen. I happen to think that phrase is far more accurate and should replace the other phrase which, unfortunate choice of words aside, is wrong.Tirronan (talk) 21:44, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I apologize if I sounded too confrontational, it was not my intention and I already saw the term used in this page, correctly, in my opinion. There is no need to overreact.

Regarding the limitation, even Massie (far from my favorite author) indicates that the GF would not advance south of Horns Reef latitude which is 55°31', matching Halperns depiction of the situation. I understand that the Admiralty would give Jellicoe guidelines for the GF, but the actual orders would come from Jellisoe, and Halpern quotes what Jellicoes intentions and opinions were (he mentions a letter from J to Beatty on Sep 6th) previous and during the meeting with the Admiralty on the 13th and they match with the guidelines Marder mentions.

As to the Germans not wanting to battle the GF... they did not want to do it before Jutland either, any implication that Jutland would have had anything to do with that decision would be, in my opinion, misleading. AS to what the Germans did after the GF retreated from the North Sea? One more torpedoed ships was all that was needed to come to the same conclusion, when Munchen was torpedoed in October it made it clear that the North Sea was an unhealthy place for warships, it also gave Scheer more ammunition to press for USW which was the strategy he had been pressing for all along. If anything, the North Sea was no man's land, both sides filled it with mines and subs making any sortie even more dangerous than before Jutland. There would be minor sorties and training cruises, but neither side would come knocking to the enemy's door anymore.

Yesterday and earlier today, I made a couple modifications, I apologize if it was too soon and I am certainly open to any criticism about the text. Trauk (talk) 23:14, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually, a few points on the last paragraph, 1. Because of the damage to the HSF and newly constructed ships ready for work up the balance if anything improved for the British. Had the Battle resumed the next day the balance of forces would have been worse for the HSF not better. The damage to the HSF was to more ships and more extensive. 2. No I think everyone agrees that the battle was an accident on the Germany side they didn't intend to meet the GF. However, regardless of intent the effect was that the blockade remained in place that doesn't change. Regardless of whatever else happened the blockade created a major issue and this is why Scheer went to the Kaiser and said no operation by the HSF was going change the blockade. The whole point of the HSF sailing that day was to fight part of the GF to redress the balance so that the HSF could break the blockade.

I agree with the paragraph on the HSF passing through the tail of the GF, nice catch.Tirronan (talk) 13:13, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

An issue I have always with that approach is that the HSF actually had the initiative in the North Sea, short of the GF committing suicide by steaming through the German minefields, torpedo boats, submarines and destroyers it could not force the HSF to engage and, therefore, was unable to take advantage of the damage caused. The next engagement wouldnt happen the next day, it would happen whenever the Germans were ready to sortie again. Damaged ships can be repaired, they are just unavailable just as ships working up or in refit, is a temporary and circumstantial condition, sunk on the other hand, it is not (most of the time).

After Jutland, the RN commissioned a single BB in 1916 (Royal Sovereign was in work up, just as Bayern, and both were already part of their fleets), Resolution in Dec, before that only Renown and Repulse in Aug-Sep 1916 were added, but these were soon retired to have their armour reinforced. Therefore, the RN would make up for the 3 losses only in Dec 1916, the HSF would commission Baden in Oct 1916 thus compensating for Lutzow's loss. In any case, the new RN ships were scheduled to be commissioned and would enter the GF Jutland or no Jutland, the losses inflicted would still detract from the RN numbers and put the Germans in a better footing than if they had not fought Jutland.

I agree with you and Scheer, nothing changes the blockade. As a matter of fact, make the Germans actually exterminate Beatty's force and then retreat, even have the German subs sink 4 more BBs at Jutland, thats is 8 BBS and 6 BCs to no losses, that would have been a huge German victory... and that would still not change the blockade one bit because such a battle can't, short of the Germans pulling a Lissa and virtually annihilating the GF no battle would have had an effect on a blockade set up outside of the North Sea. Breaking the blockade was a mid to long term goal, in order to do that you need to destroy the GF in battle, in order to fight the GF with some hope of success you need to somehow reduce the difference between both forces. We can claim that Jutland did not have an effect on the blockade, but that would be the same as saying that the Germans failed because they didnt win the war that day, something entirely out of the realm of possibility.

In order to say that Germany failed to break the blockade at Jutland we first need to establish if such a thing was actually possible. Trauk (talk) 21:54, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Made a small change on account of Tirronan's suggestions. Trauk (talk) 14:07, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

The important point of Jutland with regard to the intentions of the Germans not to fight a full fleet engagement was that it confirmed in reality what they had believed in theory. true, before and after it was not their intention to engage fleets, but the accounts I have read say once they came back from Jutland they understood the reality of this from the shell holes and near losses.

I find the actual losses on the day hard to assess. In theory the british battlecruisers were major assets, but on the day they were self igniting deathtraps. I see two ways to interpret this. Either they were useless in battle, hence they were in reality little loss, or the faults which led to their loss were fixable, hence they could be expected to perform much better in a future engagement. My inclination is that faults were fixable, so in future engagements they might be expected to perform better, having had the benefit of battle experience. The Germans understood quite well that their own losses could easily have been greater, so while highlighting the number of ships lost, also appreciated the narrow margin by which other ships survived. This affected their thinking regarding the realistic prospects of seriously harming the GF. Although operations continued -after all what else could they do - they understood that the naval surface war was lost. I think that before the battle they did not believe the strategy was hopeless, thus Jutland was indeed a turning point.

I am not sure what the british thought of the battlecruisers effectiveness. For their original purpose, scouting, they remained fine. If the magazines could be fixed they should also be fine for intercepting the German battlecruisers. But at Jutland it was the 5BS by itself which outmatched the German battlecruisers, did quite well against the entire HSF. I dont know if this might have significantly affected German thinking or if they were not sufficiently aware of which ships they were engaging. If the Germans appreciated they had scored significantly only against the battlecruisers but could not match the 5BS, then again this would have deprecated their numerical successes against battlecruisers.

I am not quite sure what you mean by saying the Germans had the initiative. Yes, they had the initiative in choosing when to start an operation, but the British ability at codebreaking meant they typically had days or even weeks notice of a forthcoming operation. Thus they had the initiative in choosing where or whether to meet German ships. This was part and parcel of their election to discontinue patrols of the north sea. It simply wasnt necessary to physically patrol for the enemy.

So I think there were lessons to be learnt from the battle by both sides. However i dont myself know what written evidence there may be of the lessons the germans actually learnt. I see all the old debate is long gone, but this issue of Germans abandoning sorties after this battle plainly used to be wrong in the article and I changed some of it myself. But i am not convinced the battle was not a real turning point in that whatever they continued to do, the Germans had fully realised for the first time it could not achieve the stated objective. Sandpiper (talk) 23:39, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

In regards to the BC losses I find it very difficult to say this was a huge loss to the Grand Fleet when the response was to not build anymore. The armor system used on them all but shouts that they were not expected to be in the battle-line and the design notes make that pretty clear as well. However at the end of the day, it was bad cordite management that caused all the losses. Had British AP shells actually worked Sedlitz probably doesn't make it home either. I'd rather have more Queen Elizabeth's then BC's and they have the five R class battleships as well. Its nice to mess around with the results box which I am sure was the cause of all this campaign (Yes the Germans really won) argument all over again. Nice to know to many people it is the only thing that matters. I wish we'd just remove the won/loss box on all military articles due to the sheer amount of grief caused by this. It is in the end just more wiki lawyering to get the results the guy wanted. I am sick of discussing results boxes obviously.Tirronan (talk) 00:34, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Beatty agreed about the QE's. He wanted those ships, though I think he kept them with the fleet when he took command there.Sandpiper (talk) 19:49, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

campbell ref

The article now says "In account of the losses, the outcome of the battle was a partial success for the High Seas Fleet[ref]Campbell, Analysis pp. 350[/ref], but in the following months the Grand Fleet incorporated more new ships than the High Seas Fleet which compensated for the losses suffered at Jutland."

My copy of Campbell has on page 350 diagrams of shell holes in Derfflinger. I seem to recall there are two editions. Can anyone say what chapter/how far in/ what the context of the ref is, or possibly have a correct page number? Sandpiper (talk) 00:20, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I see campbell does say 'it had never been any part of scheer's plan to engage the whole of the Grand fleet', after the battle "Scheer did not consider such operations could force force Britain to make peace even if highly successful, and this could only be achieved by the unrestricted submarine campaign", "for much of the battle lack of visibility had a more dominant influence than any of the admirals" p.337Sandpiper (talk)

Well, you can find the quote two sentences before the bit you mention, right at the beginning of chapter 18... Trauk (talk) 00:54, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

ok. Campbell starts the chapter saying "From Britains point of view Jutland was a thoroughly unsatisfactory battle: her fleet of very considerable numerical superiority suffered far heavier losses than it inflicted, although they were too small relative to its strength to affect the situation at sea. It must be noted too that the HSF was in no condition to continue the battle at daybreak on 1 June, as of the battlecruisers only Moltke was in good fighting order, and the speed of three of the four koenigs was appreciably reduced. However, it had never been any part of scheer's plan to engage the whole grand fleet, and though he had doubtless hoped for a still more favourable loss ratio, he could at least claim partial success, the most usual result in any operation of war. Scheer was ready to try again on 19 august... Scheer did not consider that such operations could force Britain to make peace, even if highly successful, and this could only be achieved by the unrestricted submarine campaign against British commerce. "Sandpiper (talk) 18:46, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

assessments section.

I have reverted the rewrite of the assessments section by Trauk to the standard version. Although there are some interesting points which I think should be worked in, the change in its entirity is distinctly controversial.

I seem to recall a past debate here discussing the repair dates of various ships. dont know what happened to that, but I see the new version says seydlitz was returned to service in september whereas the old version said october/november. Admittedly I have hardly been here to work on it when people were kind enough to find some of the necessary information, but I think we still need to sort out and put in the article which ships were repaired at what dates. (both sides, of course) (talk) 13:23, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

IF you think something is controversial please be so kind as to point it out since the repair dates of all ships are well known. What is your objection? Trauk (talk) 00:56, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

I am not worried about the repair dates, but there was a contradiction between the old and new descriptions. Campbell has quite a bit of detail. I think this needs to go in because it seems to be controversial, so am working on including details of all repair dates for the capital ships on both sides. My objection rather is to the omission of such phrases as "Subsequently there has been considerable support for the view of Jutland as a strategic victory for the British. " and "Our Fleet losses were severe. On 1 June 1916 it was clear to every thinking person that this battle must, and would be, the last one." [which continues in the original, "Authoritative quarters said so openly"] See also quotes I have posted above, but Scheer and Hase seem to agree that this was a strategic victory for england. Sandpiper (talk) 19:02, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

repair of high seas fleet after battle

ok ive dragged this section which discussed the ship repair dates back from archive.Sandpiper (talk) 17:01, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

The article says: The High Seas Fleet survived as a fleet in being. Most of its losses were made good within a month — even Seydlitz, the most badly damaged ship to survive the battle, was repaired by October and officially back in service by November

were they? when I was looking up info for the raid on 19 August it said only Von der Tann and Moltke were serviceable for that raid, hence they sent battleships to take part with them. Im not sure how the german battleships fared at Jutland? In general i think the asessment section underplays the degree of damage to german ships and gives an impression the survivors got off relatively unscathed?Sandpiper (talk) 10:03, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

According to John Campbell, Seydlitz's repairs were completed on 16 September. As for the rest, König was the most badly damaged battleship, and her repairs were completed by 21 July. Really, only König, Grosser Kurfürst and Markgraf were hit by more than one or two shells, having been hit 10, 8, and 5 times respectively. Kaiser and Helgoland were hit twice and once, respectively. The only other damage incurred was a handful of secondary gun hits (which are of negligible importance) and the mining of Ostfriesland on the trip back (the only ship whose repair extended into August - finished on the 2nd). Of the High Seas Fleet, only Seydlitz and Derfflinger were unavailable for the 19 August raid. Parsecboy (talk) 11:57, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

So 4 Battleships fairly damaged which was 25% of the German Dreadnought fleet.Tirronan (talk) 21:04, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

mmm, it was the 'most of its losses made good in a month bit' i was bothered about. So if the conclusion is 25% still out of service 1 month later, that isnt true. Not to mention lutzow and pommern sunk. Sandpiper (talk) 23:11, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I was talking more about the damage at the morning at the end of the battle being that effect and effectiveness of the German fleet at that point. 1 BC and 12 BB effectively untouched at the end of the fight.Tirronan (talk) 00:43, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Here are the completion dates for repair work to the damaged ships according to Campbell:

• Helgoland: 16 June
• Nassau: 10 July
• Rheinland: 10 June
• Westfalen: 17 June
• Kaiser & Oldenburg: not recorded (though it appears that the two hits on Kaiser were ineffectual, so I can't imagine repairs lasting terribly long)

I wouldn't bother including Pommern in any figuring - the ship was hardly a front-line unit, just as the three armored cruisers lost were hopelessly obsolete. Parsecboy (talk) 00:59, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

• Sandpiper, While scanning various sea battles...I don't know if you are a Mahan admirer or not, but you two gentlemen are the only two people I've ever read about that came to the same conclusion; the Russians had only one chance at Tsushima, to retreat. My hats off to you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.93.176.154 (talk) 02:43, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

er, is this post in the wrong place?Sandpiper (talk) 09:10, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

"Pommern... - the ship was hardly a front-line unit, just as the three armored cruisers lost were hopelessly obsolete"

This is exaggerated language - which is unhelpful with a publication like Wikipedia. Armoured cruisers were valuable assets all through the war - and medium size cruisers with armour and 6-8in guns were built into the 1960s, so the concept was still valid for sixty years or so after Jutland. As for Pommern, she must by definition have been a front-line unit or should would not have been at Jutland.--Toddy1 (talk) 07:29, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

The British Armoured Cruisers weren't really fit for the rôle they were given, i.e. "engaging the cruisers and light forces of the enemy" and, from the van, operating "against the enemy's Battlefleet from a position of advantage, or against his minelayers, light-cruisers or destroyers threatening our line" and from the rear, and "endeavour to act against the enemy's battlefleet as well as against light craft". (G.F.B.O. XXIV. 8.), especially when at the van of the battle line.

If Scheer's post-war apologia is anything to go by, he took the Second Squadron out of nothing but sentimental reasons. If he wanted extra ships, he should have waited for König Albert to come back into service, and for Bayern to join the fleet, a wait measured in days. --Simon Harley (Talk | Library). 10:55, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

It's also telling that Scheer left the II BS home on 18–19 August. The logic that Pommern's presence at Jutland makes her a front-line unit is fallacious - one could make a similar conclusion about Schleswig-Holstein being a front-line unit given her activities during the invasion of Poland.

As for the armored cruisers, they had no business in the middle of a fleet battle, as Simon points out. Yes, armored cruisers were still highly valuable vessels for secondary duties (just as pre-dreadnoughts were useful at Gallipoli, the Baltic and Black Seas, etc.) No one is saying that once a ship can't (or shouldn't) serve with the battlefleet it's immediately and totally useless and should be turned into paper clips. There are just situations in which older ships should never find themselves. Parsecboy (talk) 13:17, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

It was unfortunate that the armored cruisers were at Jutland at all. They packed a 1000 men each in them and they were almost helpless in some situations, including submarine rich waters and fleet battles. Any thoughts that the type should be continued was discarded once and for all after Jutland. If memory serves they were some of the 1st types scrapped wholesale after the war.Tirronan (talk) 20:12, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't go so far as to say that armoured cruisers "had no business in the middle of a fleet battle" - not in mid-1916 at any rate. It's bad policy not to make use of ships, and Jellicoe, as indicated, had a use for them. At least the armoured cruisers wouldn't limit the speed of the fleet like Scheer's Second Squadron. The situation after Jutland shows a completely different situation, with the armoured cruisers shifted to convoy and patrol duties and with the Courageous class and many more light cruisers in service with the Grand Fleet with different priorities - rather than gunfire the emphasis is much more on torpedo attacks on the German line. As to the notion of building more armoured cruisers, the last British armoured cruisers (the battle cruiser aside) had been laid down in 1905, over a decade before Jutland. --Simon Harley (Talk | Library). 20:39, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

As a back up to a destroyer in a convoy it had uses, but the classes deployments after Jutland still point out that they were seen as 2nd class units. However it was war and you use what you must. In the next war Wickes and Clemson Class WW1 US destroyers would be used in convoy duty for much the same reason by Britian.Tirronan (talk) 11:16, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

HSF "never again be able to challenge the British Grand Fleet on equal terms"

I've just reverted an edit to the introduction by Rjensen. Whilst the edit was not vandalism, it did imply that the HSF never sortied again after Jutland, which is controversial. Can we discuss any appropriate changes to the introduction here. Thanks. Getztashida (talk) 11:28, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

The edit reflects the consensus of RS. Scheer planned a sortie but no major one took place. There was a minor one on 8/19 August 1916, which I suppose it what Getztashida has in mind--it was not a confrontation with the British fleet. after Oct 1916 the German fleet was of less importance than the uboat campaign. In the last weeks of the war, Hipper, now commander of the High Seas Fleet, was preparing a major fleet sortie but the sailors mutinied and no sortie was made. As Tucker (Ency WWI p 1061) says, "Scheer was forced after Jutland to reevaluate German naval prospects" and turned away from fleet actions to the submarine campaign. So it's quite true that Germany was "never again be able to challenge the British Grand Fleet on equal terms" Rjensen (talk) 19:50, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

That a confrontation did not occur on 18/19 August 1916 was mostly by chance - Scheer took off in pursuit of what zeppelins erroneously reported to be a detachment of the Grand Fleet (actually the Harwich force). By the time the mistake was cleared up, the sortie of the entire Grand Fleet had been discovered so Scheer returned to port. Another abortive operation followed on 18/19 October 1916. The entire HSF sortied again in April 1918 to attack British convoys to Norway, but this too failed. There were an additional number of limited sorties to cover minesweepers, etc. in 1916–1918.

Given that Germany never had parity with Britain, I question the validity of the statement, which seems to imply that at one point, the HSF could challenge the GF on "equal terms". Parsecboy (talk) 20:13, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

The issue is how to explain to readers that the fleet was in practice confined to port and did not fight again in a major way. Rjensen (talk) 02:19, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

But the HSF was not "in practice confined to port" and they did "fight again in a major way." The HSF sortied into the North sea twice more in 1916 and had a busy 1917 fighting the Russians in the Baltic. These are not the actions of a fleet confined to port. The idea that the HSF never sailed again after Jutland is post war British propaganda and we shouldn't be perpetuating it here when we know better. Getztashida (talk) 12:23, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

German cruiser squadrons were not "in practice confined to port"; they operated in the North Sea in 1917 and 1918 attacking British convoys, etc.--Toddy1 (talk) 12:29, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

The situation in the baltic isnt really our concern here. i think it was rather the reverse of the north sea, with the German fleet having superiority. Maybe it isnt clear in the article we are talking about north sea activities.Sandpiper (talk) 14:10, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

and the British fleet remained in control of the North Sea at the end of the battle

I see that the above phrase has been added. What does it mean?

Surely the point about distant blockade was that the British did not have control of the North Sea. I would like to dispute the above uncited statement.--Toddy1 (talk) 21:11, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

That's a fair point, and Jellicoe and later Beatty in fact prohibited the Grand Fleet from steaming past a certain latitude (can't recall the specifics atm) unless the circumstances were significantly in their favor. Maintaining the blockade and retaining control over the North Sea are not quite the same things. Parsecboy (talk) 01:26, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

It is but so is the one that for all intents, no the Germans did not sail merchant convoys through the North Sea. They sure didn't feel like they could just come out and run exercises without concern. In every case where the HSF came out it was in the hope of catching part of the GF alone. Anything that changed that one forlorn hope sent them scuttling back for safety. Sea denial is control as well. Keeping the enemy fleet in port but for three small abortive fleeting actions, is control.Tirronan (talk) 04:01, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Tirronan has it exactly right. The article needs to say that. Rjensen (talk) 05:13, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Word choice issue in explaining the position in a succinct way? "Control" implies absolute control, "dominate" less so, "upper hand" while descriptive is too colloquial. GraemeLeggett (talk) 06:57, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

There are two military concepts regarding maritime operations, "sea control" and "sea denial", the first one implies that a power has full authority over the sea and can operate at will with military and commercial vessels, the other one entails actions directed to prevent the enemy from using the sea in its benefit, usually through mines, submarines and light craft, it doesnt try to secure access to the seas, it only tries to deny the other party that very same access. That is the case here, Britain declared the North Sea a military zone in order to deny it to the Germans and its trade but it didnt secure control of it due to the threat of mines and submarines, it was no mans land as someone pointed out.

That phrase should be deleted since it also misleads the reader by insinuating that by performing their sweep the Germans actually tried to wrestle a nonexistent control of the North Sea from the British when in fact was conducting a sea denial action, just like the British. Trauk (talk) 01:54, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Most of my reference material states that as the war went on, no-one could claim control of the North sea. It became a mine and Submarine haunted nautical no-mans-land which neither fleet was prepared to risk unless the potential rewards were very great - Not that that mattered to the RN, because the blockade was not being performed in the North sea, it was being carried out around the Orkney and Shetland islands where the North Sea meets the Norwegian sea and the Atlantic ocean. Getztashida (talk) 12:32, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

We can say Jutland confirmed (for the Germans) the superiority in battle of the larger RN and the Germans therefore kept their fleet at home. The FRN had bottled the German fleet up. It could not be used for anything, and was a wasted asset. Specifically, it could not break the tight British blockade which was starving the German people. The failure to break the blockade I think is key. The German answer was to attempt their own blockade (by uboat) which was defeated by the RN's convoy system Rjensen (talk) 21:42, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

The High Seas Fleet was unnecessarily large for the job it could do in the Baltic against the Russians. Part of it was used usefully for that. If the Germans had been willing to accept more losses dues to Russian mines and submarines, they could conceivably have gained more benefits from their investment in battleships and battlecruisers by using them more to support the German Army against the Russians.

However, the Germans preferred to avoid battleship and battlecruiser losses, as this weakened the High Seas Fleet's potential combat power against the British. Against the British, the High Seas Fleet pursued the strategy of the fleet in being.

Tirpitz and the organisation he headed (the RMA) had known that the German fleet would be too weak to defeat the Royal Navy since before the First Naval Law. (The Risk Theory was a sham to convince the politicians to fund the German Navy's expansion between the late-1890s and 1914.)--Toddy1 (talk) 21:58, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

The blockade and Jutland have nothing to do with each other, at all. The HSF didnt remain at port after Jutland, it sortied several times and operated against the Russians as well and examples can be easily quoted. The idea of a HSF sitting at port is a byproduct of British propaganda and should be dismissed. Trauk (talk) 01:54, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

In the same spirit, this phrase regrading the result of the battle: "Tactically inconclusive; British dominance of the North Sea maintained" is unnecessarily long. Jutland was an indecisive or inconclusive engagement, no qualifications, period. The rest are leftovers from British propaganda trying to give Jutland a meaning it never had, otherwise we could also claim that Jutland is a British victory because it saved England from invasion, after all, invasion, breaking the blockade and/or some sort of imaginary British control of the sea all fall outside of Scheers intentions for the Jutland operation and we can not charge the Germans with failing to achieve something they did not attempt to achieve. This should be addressed and eliminated. Trauk (talk) 21:59, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I cant really agree. It seems to me the battle was tactically inconclusive because on the day neither side achieved dominance or any significant advantage in the engagement. However, i do believe that properly analysed the battle demonstrated that the british had already won a strategic victory. It was the point in a chess game where one side realised they had lost, and might have resigned. The Germans, however, continued to play out a losing hand regarding the surface war. This being so, it is important to say more than 'tactically inconclusive', because it simply wasnt just this. This point has been debated much in the past. The other problem to be born in mind is the distinction between surface and underwater operations; in reality mostly these were two separate wars, or perhaps different strategies tried alternately. Sandpiper (talk) 00:11, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Jutland could (and indeed has, fairly frequently—I cited a bunch of examples in an earlier incarnation of this perennial debate) just as easily be described as a German tactical victory on account of the sheer human losses inflicted on the RN. But, to echo Trauk's comments above, I'm not at all surprised of the double-standard being applied here. Albrecht (talk) 15:01, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

To make my position clear, we should probably agree that on balance, "Indecisive" does justice to the full conflicting range of interpretations and put a full stop there. As Trauk observes, the "dominance of North Sea" supplemental clause is nothing less than an attempt to smuggle-in a subliminal statement about a British strategic victory (whether or not this constitutes good, scholarly historical revisionism or an outright "Rule, Britannia" ideology is not at issue here—its appearance in the introductory Infobox to the exclusion of other considerations gives it undue weight. Mark it as "Indecisive," and the various partisans and their ghosts can battle it out into eternity in the "Aftermath" section). Albrecht (talk) 15:14, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

This battle has been fought many times on this page and the compromise wording arrived at was that posted on the page.' tactically inconclusive, british dominance maintained.'. This statement seems to me factually correct.Sandpiper (talk) 18:04, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it's fair to imply the that wording was an acceptable compromise to any party. I have always argued that the only appropriate wording for the infobox would be "indecisive" and until this discussion brought it back to may attention, I though that is what we had settled on. The extra term seems to have sneaked in on it's own accord without discussion. Getztashida (talk) 14:35, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Please then explain what "dominance" means in this context since that is not a military concept such as sea control or sea denial. Trauk (talk) 00:20, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

I dont believe the article should use terms with a special technical meaning, because it should be readable by non experts in this field. definition of dominace said 'being dominant'. Definition of dominant said '1.ruling, governing, or controlling; having or exerting authority or influence: dominant in the chain of command.2.occupying or being in a commanding or elevated position.3.predominant; main; major; chief: Corn is the dominant crop of Iowa.' It does not mean the less dominant party has no freedom of action, but it is constrained by the dominant party. That sounded about right. Sandpiper (talk) 17:39, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

strategic effect

The article says "At a strategic level, the outcome has been the subject of a huge literature, with no clear consensus, but a Royal Navy staff study concluded that the battle had no immediate strategic effect[109]." referencing it to halpern p.331. Halpern p.331 says 'the battle of jutland...had no immediate effect on fleet strategy'. These two statement are not the same. The article talks about whether the battle had an effect. The reference talks about whether strategy changed. The noun and adjective have been reversed. The battle did not cause any change in RN strategy, but that is not to say it did not have an effect, which is what the article is claiming. It is perfectly reasonable to conclude from the reference that the RN did not change its strategy because it was a successful strategy and indeed was winning the war. The reference does not support an assertion the battle was not a strategic victory, which it seems to me it was. Sandpiper (talk) 23:44, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Halpern continues by quoting Beatty dated 6 Sept as writing to jellicoe with regard to ceasing to patrol south of 55deg, 'when you are winning, risk nothing'. ie Beatty was saying they already had a winning strategy, the same strategy effectively in place at Jutland, which battle in fact demonstrated that it was a winning strategy. The later events of 18 aug plus a shortage of destroyers convinced them to make a change of strategy to discontinue southerly patrols, but because this was not necessary for the otherwise unchanged strategy to result in a win. Halpern does not say they will never go south, but will only do so if conditions are favourable and there is a good chance of engaging the HSF.Sandpiper (talk) 00:17, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Yet there were demonstrable changes in both fleets deployments, if not in intent. The Grand Fleet wasn't going to continue to deploy around minefields in the south. The High Sea Fleet certainly was even more careful about its deployments. Operational changes were certainly evident Beatty going addressing night fighting, how the ships would fight from that point on. The BCF was not the BCF as an independent command anymore. As the American Fleet would discover, the British had gotten fanatical about flash protection and cordite handling procedures. The turning of to the submarine campaign slowly dragging the US into the war and the blithe dismissal of American military power and the ability to get it to Europe in time are all direct strategic effects as well are they not?Tirronan (talk) 01:23, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm interested to know where you found references to the american fleets experience re british fleet cordite handling? As to the minefields, is this really anything to do with the battle? maybe they had a review afterwards and decided it was an unnecessary risk to patrol near minefields, but was this really an ongoing situation which had reached the point a change was needed? I'm also not entirely sure the british attitude to taking on the German fleet had changed so very much: There werent exactly many further opportunities to tell whether under the new rules of engagement the fleets would still be chasing each other or not. Then, the fleet was short of destroyers which were increasingly being deployed elsewhere for the perceived need to protect merchant shipping, which made fleet operations more difficult. Im not sure about a 'blithe dismissal of american power', more of a calcualated risk in the face of an overall war which was not going well? The debate over giving the US a reason for direct intervention had been going on for years?Sandpiper (talk) 21:14, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Norman Friedman's book US Battleships an Illustrated Design. There was quite a bit in there about the interplay of the US Battle Squadron and there were visits between the constructors of one another's ships. It gives interesting insight to the how the GF was operating 2 years after Jutland.Tirronan (talk) 21:58, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Been reading Nicholas Lambert, sir john Fisher's naval revolution. From this it is quite plain the dangers of submarines began to be appreciated and affect admiralty strategy way back to 1902 when the first trials of submarines began. The admiralty began to accept the need for distant blockade of Germany and using destroyers and submarines both as defence against German large ships and as a viable force to attack them without battleship support. In that light, there was nothing new from this battle regarding keeping battleships well out of the north sea apart from clear opportunities of advantage except that it provided another example of the truth of the dangers. Sandpiper (talk) 10:04, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Often forgotten, if you have sailed those waters, they are shallow thus easy to mine visibility is often bad and very often horrible. The North Sea area is bounded with relatively few channels to exit. Staying out of the southern minefield areas made a lot of sense.Tirronan (talk) 15:24, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Both sides claimed victory

I see the phrase 'both sides claimed victory' has been removed from the article. I was under the impression that they did? Whoever might have won in reality, they both for propaganda reasons claimed it?Sandpiper (talk) 23:15, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree, the Germans had a partial success as Campbell puts it, the English however had no grounds to claim one. Trauk (talk) 00:43, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

well you may find Steel and Hart, Jutland, 2003, p.425 amusing: "Whatever specious claims can be constructed from an analysis of losses or casualties it remains a fact the british won the battle if Jutland [authors italics]. In the end the material successes of the high seas fleet fade into insignificance in comparison to the crushing strategic success of the Royal Navy secured for the British Empire. The great question of the naval war had been answered. Although the HSF did reemerge, it would never again seriously threaten the command of the seas possessed by the Grand Fleet. The sole intention of the Germans at Jutland had been to isolate a small portion of the British fleet and, by destroying it, to allow a subsequent fleet action between relatively equal forces to follow quickly. They almost succeeded, but in the end failed. The British losses were painfull, but quickly replaced. Ultimately, the British margin of superiority was not affected in the slightest by the battle There is no room for sentiment in war, the most brutal of sciences. the mere fact the Germans fought bravely against the odds does not materially change the result."

And then they quote Hase commanding Derfflinger (from kiel and Jutland p.229) . "The English fleet, by remaining a 'fleet in being', by its mere continued existence, had so far fully fulfilled its allotted task. The Battle of Skaggerak did not relax the pressure exerted by the English fleet as a 'fleet in being' for one minute."

and then quote Scheer (Germany's high seas fleet, p.360), "In view of Englands plan of campaign, there was no alternative but to inflict direct injury upon English commerce. We could not build a sufficiently great number of additional ships to compensate for the inevitable losses which we were bound to suffer in the long run in a conflict with the numerically superior English fleet... We ought to have tried earlier what the result of a victory by our fleet would be. It was a mistake on the part of the naval leaders not to do so." (p.169) "A victorious war at not too distant a date can only be looked for by crushing the english economic life through U-boat action against English commerce...."

VE Tarrant, Jutland the German perspective p.278 is kinder. "The Germans based their claim to victory chiefly upon the infliction of greater losses, particularly in terms of ships, despite having fought against superior odds. They could fairly congratulate themselves on this achievement, but the result of a battle are not judged on losses in material and casualties alone. From the tactical point of view, since neither fleet was able to inflict a crippling blow on the other, Jutland belongs to the series of inconclusive battles or partial victories which are the rule in naval warfare. From the strategic point of view, which is what really matters - that is, the effect of the battle on the outcome of the war - the German cry of victory had a hollow ring." ...[He goes on describing the failed early hopes of the German fleet].. "The essence of the matter was pithily summed up four days after the battle by the globe newspaper. Will the shouting, flag waving [German] people get any more of the copper, rubber, and cotton their Government so sorely needs? Not by a pound. Will meat and butter be cheaper in Berlin? Not by a pfennig. There is one test, and only one, of victory. Who held the field of battle at the end of the fight?"

Tarrant p.278-9 then quotes a new york newspaper "The German fleet has assaulted its jailor, but is still in jail". And quotes some more from scheer about the disadvantages of the German position and the impossibility of overcoming the blockade by naval actions"Sandpiper (talk) 18:25, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

When the German response is to run as quickly as possible and to continue to run with one squadron shot to pieces, another damaged pretty well and the loser is searching for the German fleet to finish it off I absolutely disagree. The single worst thing about this article and perhaps the single best thing that Massie did do, was to outline in livid detail just how bad it was to be the receiving end of what the Grand Fleet was handing out. It would go a long way to answering these question once and for all. I don't care how many stupid sophomoric arguments are made. When it came to time for battle the High Sea Fleet ran with no intention whatsoever of actually fighting. Nothing, not the balance of losses nor the arguments made thereafter is going to change the fact that only one fleet showed up that day actually intending to make an end to it. Tirronan (talk) 16:02, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Tirronan, we have this same discussion over and over and you always come out with the same pugnacious statements, but the fact of the matter was that the HSF could not win a direct confrontation with the GF in 1916. Their only plausible strategy was to attempt to inflict asymmetrical losses on the enemy and then bug out before it got too hot for them. That might not satisfy your personal idea of "victory" but Scheer "intending to make and end to it" in May 1916 would have been gross incompetence at best, or more likely suicide in practice. There's nothing contrary in the idea that the Germans achieved their short term tactical aim (after a fashion) whilst simultaneously realising that their long term strategic plan was unworkable. Therefore, can we please avoid these zero sum arguments. Trauk is equally wrong to insist that the British have no claim on victory, but we are never going to achieve any sort of consensus if no one is prepared to even countenance the idea that the other side might have a point. The argument wouldn't still be alive and well nearly 100 years on if the answer was straightforward as you both seem to think. Getztashida (talk) 23:41, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

I am not interested in your views on me, you just got personal. I have as much right to edit here as anyone else and I do not appreciate your attempts to censor me. It is perfectly ok to say that you have a difference of opinion even strongly so but don't start making personal remarks.Tirronan (talk) 08:30, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Bloody hell Tirronan, I'm not trying to censor you - I'd just like the discussion to move on to something a bit more nuanced then "the Germans won because they sank more ships! No they didn't because they ran away!" How many times do we have to explain that the concept of "holding the field" is not a victory condition in a hit-and-run raid scenario? How many times must we repeat that the Germans achieved their short term tactical objective while the British achieved their long term strategic objectives? How many times must we point out that the battle didn't materially effect the naval status quo in the the slightest? These are not new arguments, we have pages and pages of archives going over the same old ground ad-infinitum and all because some minority of editors (and as far as I can make out it is a minority) simply cannot get their head around the idea that both arguments have merit. Why can't we all accept that none of are going to solve the great "who won Jutland" riddle - a question that has defied being clearly answered for 100 years - and actually focus on the article adequately conveying that ambiguity to layman readers? Getztashida (talk) 23:02, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

'holding the field' is not necessarily a victory condition, but nor is necessarily a loss. Im not quite sure what we are arguing about here: my original point was that the simple sentence, 'both sides claimed victory', is true, beautifully punchy and gets across that that there was disagreement, indeed hints at major disagreement about the result. The overall result of the battle seems to have been to confirm to both sides that the british had a winning strategy and the Germans did not...so the Germans changed theirs, or Scheer at any rate recommended this. I do not find the result clear cut to asses on the tactical level. The traditional test of losses gives the win to the Germans on the day, but clearly they themselves put this down to luck. Maybe they should have put it to british incompetence. However, the Germans also recognised the near fatal damage to other ships which would have considerably narrowed the numerical loss. Then too, the proportionate losses rather than absolute losses are more telling because the British could sustain losses better. It is very difficult to tell, if everything could have been reset wargaming style and the battle rerun how it would have gone with the benefit of experience. The Germans are repeatedly quoted as having benefited from experience of ammunition fires earlier in the war on a smaller scale. I still dont know to what extent this is really true.Sandpiper (talk) 10:01, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

There is a perfectly valid argument that the German's having sunk more tonnage won. There is a perfectly valid point that the British having held the field won. At the end of the day we have a massive battle that contributed nothing to the war effort of either side. All three arguments are correct. I have a similar problem with the Battle of Borodino for another set of reasons. Again the French won the incontestable right to move forward and starve to death in unprecedented numbers. I don't know what to do with that one either. Part of my frustration is that we didn't capture the horror of that moment when lo and behold there is the entire Grand Fleet in front of us and everything at the front of the columns is getting torn up. Lets get the hell outta here right the hell now. But no matter how I cut it I it continues to seem that the closest to the truth is that the battle changed nothing. There is a mechanism whereby significant minority views maybe represented as well. There are certainly enough historians that hold to either side and still more that represent the article's views. Personally I'd like more flexibility than won/lost/draw in the outcome box. There isn't a meaningless victory ie Borodino or complex multifaceted views to an outcome. The War of 1812 comes to mind, there each side defended its own territory and the British won the naval war but we can't do that either now. What I would truly love is a multiple view outcome and the results box that said see below. I do understand that there are a lot of ways of looking at this battle, right now we don't have a great way of addressing it.Tirronan (talk) 01:45, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I thought that I had finally answered that question in the article. There are a few things, 1. The cordite was a terrible propellant and uncased it was horribly sensitive to flash. Rope mantlets were found to be part of the answer heavy and wet they would stop flash, they found vents that didn't stop flash, doors that opened inward to magazines, magazine walls that were weak, and at least the Queen Mary is sitting on the ocean bottom showing her handling rooms stacked with uncased charges. Interview held of other BC gun crews showed this to be a common practice in the Battle Cruiser Fleet. Given that all three BC's that sunk when in the same way... it is hard for me to believe that anything but cordite storage was to blame. The Captain of the Sedlitz states how the rounds were treated on his ship and the why of it was Dogger Bank. Again the propellant wouldn't explode. While that didn't make much difference to the gun crews (They almost invariably were burnt to death), the ships didn't blow up. The US Navy's BuOrd had a fit about cordite being on US Naval vessels declaring it unfit for US ships. It honestly looks like they are right. I think I even included a like to the BuOrd test result of flash and cordite. Interestingly, shells were impervious to explosions, be they German, British, or American.Tirronan (talk) 02:02, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, we at least seem to agree about most things. Sorry for my previous outburst but sometimes I get quite frustrated over our inabaility to move past a few basic contentious issues. Getztashida (talk) 16:56, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Most of them including the fact that we seem to have to cover the outcome over and over. Until we have a way for a more complex answer then won loss or draw it will remain (Tirronan here at work btw) forgiven, forgotten.15.219.153.74 (talk) 20:06, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I suppose we could dodge and say something like 'tricky one, that', but really the point of a little check box like that is to summarise very very short, even if its difficult.

The trouble with the claim that X won based on the losses they inflicted upon Y is that, on this basis, you'd havre to conclude the Germans also won Stalingrad, Kursk, Omaha Beach, and Berlin. Now clearly nobody would make such dumb claims (I hope), but the only reason is that any such claim founders the instant you look at the context. So does the claim for German victory at Jutland, because it exists solely based on material losses. As soon as you look at what their "victory" earned them, then just like Napoleon at Borodino you wonder whether this was a win worth having at all. They were still left needing to cut off and destroy a portion of the Grand Fleet because they'd failed to do so.

As someone said elsewhere, what Jutland exposed was a deficiency in various aspects of British ship design and operational practice, but there was no deficiency in the strategy they were pursuing. It survived the battle and it worked. The first German strategy - erode the Grand Fleet piecemeal - had failed. It was abandoned in favour of a new one - a U-boat campaign. Rather than reducing the number, strength and determination of their enemies, it instead multiplied them all. That clearly failed as well.

If you include the fact that the fleet-in-being strategy eventually enabled a Communist-led fleetwide mutiny, and if you go back to pre-war and include the original Tirpitz strategy of building a battleship fleet to deter Britain from making war on Germany in the first place, then you could make a case that Germany tried *four* different naval strategies against Britain (have a fleet; use the fleet; use the U-boats; fleet-in-being) and that all four were defeated.

So yes, tactically inconclusive on the day, which meant that Britain didn't lose and that Germany lost. Tirailleur (talk) 10:11, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

But again we're mixing up the battle and the war. It is entirely possible to win lots of battles yet still loose the war (the Germans seemed to have a particular knack for that, actually) so when you look at the context, concluding that the Germans won the battle of Jutland but their victory didn't lead to success in the North Sea campaign because their strategy was wrong would be entirely defensible. I can help but feel that the problem here is that we can't separate "the Battle of Jutland" from the "WW1 North Sea Naval Campaign" in the way that we might separate the "Battle of the Somme" from the "WWI Western Front campaign."

Assuming that we accept (bear with me on this one) that the Germans achieved their short term tactical goal of inflicting a favourable ratio of losses on the enemy whilst avoiding a major fleet battle (which they did, after a fashion - if only by the skin of their teeth) then, on their own terms at least, they won at Jutland. The fact that it was a worthless victory, a victory bought at too greater cost or a victory that didn't actually advance their strategy one iota doesn't stop it being a victory. Of course, because their strategy was fatally flawed, this hard fought and narrow victory didn't help them in the slightest, but that pertains to their broader campaign strategy, not the battle in of itself. Obviously the campaign needs to be discussed in the article in order to provide context for for the battle itself and the aftermath, but lets not mistake the wood for the trees. Events that occurred months or years down the line might shed light of the significance of the battle, but don't automatically pertain directly to the battle itself. The HSF mutiny, for example, should be more correctly attributed to the erosion of moral caused by a year of virtual inactivity and all the best and most motivated crews transferring to the submarine service. These were effects of the change in strategy effected after Jutland (but also after the other abortive sorties of 1916 which seem to have done more to convince Sheer he couldn't sortie without facing the entire Grand Fleet than Jutland itself did) but are not the direct consequences of the battle. To imply that the Germans lost at Jutland because two years later the HSF mutinied is tortuous logic to say the least. Getztashida (talk) 17:51, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

a German tactical victory, but a British strategic victory

Well, I would say (at least from the article) that this battle was, in fact, not tactically inconclusive, but that it was a German tactical victory (or British tactical defeat), as that is clearly the case from the data, from the battle statistics. When judging the tactical outcome in naval battles, all that matters is the amount of tonnage or the number of ships sunk (according to their so-called classes), (or the reciprocal) ratio of these amounts or numbers. (You can also review the respective Wikipedia articles on tactical and strategic victory.) Judging it by "who held the field at the end" is nonsense because... simply speaking, there is no field. :-) Indeed, that concept from land battles cannot extend here, as the ships could sail there at any time later. The main difference between land and naval forces is that the main task or objective of land forces is occupation, whereas the main task or objective of naval forces is denial. And there is no field to occupy in the case of naval battles. (Indeed, both fleets "retreated from the field" in the end.) All that matters here is therefore the resulting (relative) strength of the navies. Therefore it was definitely a German tactical victory. What you claim here otherwise, is, in fact, a quite different concept—the question of the strategic outcome of the battle—whether the strategic objectives (of the parties) were met, or not. And from this point of view, it was then still a German strategic defeat (or British strategic victory). Ahh, now the challenge is to find reputable sources to quote the above... Is anyone up to it?  ;-) Cheers! –178.40.45.22 (talk) 23:43, 30 June 2012 (UTC)