The battle of Jutland

[Dr. Pain]

End of May is the 100th anniversary of the battle. It was epic and the loss of life should not be forgotten especially those poor buggers in the battle cruisers. The public in Britain thought the war would open with an epic sea battle considering billions of pounds in todays money was poured into battle ship and battle cruiser construction.

This is the cost of only the Queen Elizabeth battle ships. From 1906 to 1917 the British build 30 dreadnoughts and a dozen battle cruisers. On current exchange rates, it enormous!

HMS Queen Elizabeth - Portsmouth Dockyard - £3,014,103
HMS Malaya (1915) £2,945,709
HMS Valiant £2,537,037
HMS Warspite £2,524,148
HMS Barham £2,470,113

This is worth a watch.

https://vimeo.com/162655850

[smithcorp]

Cheers Doc! An amazing period and battle. Love it and have read lots about it.

I can recommend a fantastic book on the battle and how and why certain command decisions were made - The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command by Gordon. It's a fascinating (and quite funny) book that traces the key people back through their careers and the naval and royal incidents and relationships that influenced critical command decisions during the battle.

The British lost more ships and men than the Germans, but the Germans ran for it and never ventured out again in full strength again (hence considered a British victory). Its likely that if there was another big fleet engagement, the Germans would have won. They had better ships, better fire control and better shells.

And here's an interesting snippet - when artillery officers say "splash" to note the imminent landing of shells, they are referencing this early period of naval warfare, where engagement ranges were 10 miles or more and where gunnery control officers adjusted range based on observed fall of shot 30 seconds or more after firing. To help them differentiate the landing of their shells from those of other ships, gunnery officers would calculate the expected time in flight and call "splash" when their salvo was expected to arrive. For this reason, the commanders also tried to distribute the fire of their ships across their opposite numbers - if more than one ship was firing at an enemy ship, it was very hard to tell which splashes were yours.

[DarrenM]

This channel is doing a "This week 100 years ago" series where they cover the events of WW1 as they unfolded. Also lots of other detail videos in between the weekly summaries.

https://www.youtube.com/user/TheGreatWar

[J.D.]

Also remembered for a British seaman, Jack Cornwell, who, at 16 became the third youngest recipient of the Victoria Cross and the youngest posthumous recipient.

[Dr. Pain]

It's 100 years ago this took place, well about midnight our time. It did change the war and bought in the US at a later date. It gave the Nazi party a supporter base later on. It really did change our world. The Germans didn't leave port to secure their shipping lanes which lead to a blockade by the allies, it then lead to unrestricted submarine warfare. The Germans civilians really suffered during the blockade which they never forgot.

Battle of Verdun kicked off on the 29th of May 1916, Battle of Jutland on 31st and the opening battle of the Somme on July 1st. That's one hell of a 6 weeks and so many dead!

Lest we forget