@@historigraph It was really good. Video is a good format for showing how the different formations move relative to one another, and Jutland is a confusing battle which you make much clearer. If you ever want to make sense of an even more confusing battle, then WWII's Operation Crusader would be a great one.
yeah way better than those documentaries that say what the ships are doing but just show stock footage of guns shooting while you sit there trying to understand wtf is going on.
A very good synopsis; I just finished Massie's "Castles of Steel", goes quite in depth (pun intended). You left out the periscope Beatty supposedly saw that no one else did, or any mention of subs. The Brits didn't learn their lesson from this, and left the ammo hatches open on the Hood when engaged with Bismarck and Prinz Eugen.
@@schaferhundschmidt1798 where the hell did you hear that? The British very much learned the lesson after this and actually became pretty paranoid about detonations, so much so that in the Battle of the Denmark Strait, the one where Hood was lost, Prince of Wales was having trouble firing its guns in part because its ammo hatches were too tightly built and they couldn't open as the ship flexed in its turn. The Hood exploded because it took a penetrating hit to its magazine, and flash doors are there to prevent FLASH from starting larger fires and explosions. If the magazine is breached and starts burning short of it flooding there's little that can stop the force of the entire thing going up and taking the ship with it.
Not really, apart from Beatty's ships which lacked the proper facilities, most British battleships shot as well if not better than the Germans. The newer British rangefinders were markedly superior the German ones but not yet fitted to all ships. The position of the ships relative to the sun, and smoke, were major factors in achieving hits. Arguably the main reason the German fleet wasn't decimated was due to faulty British shells. I can't remember the exact quote but one of the German commanders said after the battle that it would have been a disaster if the British shells had penetrated more reliably.
@@historigraph Did Royal Navy learn from their powder charge mistakes from Jutland? You said that the British ships that detonated were keeping too many charges near turrets. It seems German Dreadnoughts could take a harder beating because they had better storage? In WWII, USS Arizona detonated and it too was a WWI era Battleship
@@nagasako7 The problem was incorrect storage not design by itself. They kept propellant in unsafe places, between the magazines and the turrets, which could result in a chain reaction if a shell landed in the right spot. The storage was better on German ships but it's the bad quality of British shells that saved them. Arizona was caught off guard and took a direct hit to its magazine. It was unlucky, not a design problem.
Fun fact- Major Francis Harvey of the Royal Marines Artillery was a senior gunnery officer on the HMS Lion, his section suffered a direct hit blowing off both his legs but despite this he still had the prescence of mind to order the powder magazine be flooded- preventing the entire ship from exploding and saving over a thousand lives. He died shortly afterwards from his injuries, but was awarded the Victoria Cross for his gallantry
@@samarkand1585: Maybe the Brits have very high standards so "good enough" means a lot. (Maybe it was quite appropriate that Beatty wasn't named Goodenough.)
A very confusing and frustrating battle, for those taking part and historians. I read a very good book about it when I was at school which left a deep impression on me. One has to feel sorry for Jellicoe, who had a tremendous amount of responsibility on his shoulders, and who was very poorly served by Beatty and by the light cruisers whose job it was to report the position of the enemy fleet. I think the aptly named Commodore Goodenough was the only one to send accurate and regular reports. One thing which is rarely mentioned is that the British used a volatile form of propellant for their guns - one which tended to burn violently, causing uncontrollable "flash fires" when ignited by nearby shell hits. German cordite burned but did not explode in similar circumstances. This is one reason why German ships did not blow up - despite repeated hits - at the Falkland Islands, Jutland and later in World War Two.
Also there was an emphasis with the British on fast gunnery, and most British ships kept a massive amount of spare charges for the guns heaped in corridors and nearby the guns, also leaving a lot of doors open so that when they were hit this set them off and created a chain reaction. I'm sure there's a more technical explanation of this, this is just something I read or saw in a documentary somewhere so can't quite remember the exact details.
@@rupertbaskerville Promotion from First Officer to Captain within the Royal Navy was predicated upon how smart the ship looked, discipline was God. Any chipped paint, torn uniforms, or worn bedding could cost someone their chance at the big chair, so no expense was spared in maintaining the entire fleet in parade readiness rather than combat readiness. Not only would a ship's discretionary budget be weighted heavily towards esthetics, but a well-off First Officer would often dip into their own pocket to fund another paint job. Promotion became a matter of wealth and connections as much or more than merit. Even the training budget wasn't spared the need for ever more textiles, meaning that Royal Navy gunners often couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Doctrine was adjusted to compensate, with rate of fire overruling basic safety. There isn't a single elevator running ammo up from the magazine to turret. Rather, it's a series of small, one story elevators, basically dumb waiters, interconnecting the decks between. Propellant is loaded into one dumb waiter, the armored shutter is closed, the propellant gets sent up, another shutter is opened, propellant retrieved, shutter closed, propellant sent across the room into another dumb waiter, and on up the height of the ship's interior to the turret. In theory. In practice, those shutters were just left open at all times in combat, meaning that any detonation could potentially consume the entire turret, magazine, and the barbette (turret vertical shaft) between. Those Battlecruisers weren't bad ships, it's just that they'd already accomplished their mission. In the pre-war years the British performed a naval study regarding wartime shipping, and concluded that any major power could annihilate British shipping across the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean just by deploying a couple dozen cruisers as commerce raiders. Meanwhile escorting every merchant ship would take a couple hundred cruisers, so passive defense wasn't an option. Enter the Royal Navy Battlecruiser, a vessel specifically designed to hunt down and sink any commerce raiding cruiser. Hunting the hunters. This strategy was entirely successful, despite some early successes the German merchant raider fleet had been comprehensively neutralized by the time of Jutland. Too bad for the Battlecruisers, who lacking any other mission got sent North to fight German Battleships whose guns could completely overmatch Battlecruiser armor. Firing a Battlecruiser main battery naval shell required 3 things: the projectile, from one to six propellant bag(s), and the primer bag. Propellant was remarkably resilient, able to withstand major shocks without detonating. Simply trying to fire it out of the cannon wouldn't have resulted in detonation. This was deliberate so as to prevent an internal magazine explosion from consuming the entire ship, in theory only those propellant bags physically inside the blast would ignite. The primer bag was small, roughly the size of an envelope, and mas meant to be loaded inside the gun after the final propellant bag. In Royal Navy service though, and in the name of rate of fire, primer bags were sowed directly onto the backs of propellants. Completely defeating the whole premise of having separate primer sacks. This of course meant that if for whatever reason a propellant bag rolled off a shelf or out out of someone's hands, and landed primer on the deck primer end down it would likely detonate, consuming everyone nearby with it. With Battlecruiser armor having no way to keep Battleship scale violence outside, with an unmeritocratic culture of pretension leaving every armored shutter securely in the useless position, and with that same culture placing every propellant bag in the vessel already ready to detonate with it's own integrated primer, any single hit could potentially take out the entire vessel. Then they got hit.
@@rupertbaskerville Yes. The British had been so dominant at sea for over a century, that in their training they had started to value the wrong things. How good the ships looked and how clean things were, had often taken precedence over shooting practice, as gun blasts damaged things and created a lot of dirt and marks. And drills that could be done without actually firing the guns, like the focus on loading times, had taken on too much importance. But then the Americans were even worse in a lot of those aspects.
@@Peoples_Republic_of_Devonshire sthu. You just couldn’t go one video without bringing up politics. Why do you alienate your political opponents so much?
9:27 There was some method to Scheer's madness here. Having retreated from a previous sticky situation, he knew that in the remaining hours of daylight the Grand Fleet, with a several knot speed advantage, could outrun him and cut him off before he'd get back to Germany. Thus, rather than just running away immediately, he judged it better to go for another spear jab which should have crossed Jellicoe's T from behind (no metaphor intended) had the British turned South-West to pursue the Germans as expected. Unfortunately for Scheer, Jellicoe had cautiously decided not to run them down immediately for fear of losing ships to the German flotilla's torpedoes. This meant that he took a wider approach leading his fleet away and then Southward. Thus Scheer accidentally attacked straight back into the British battleline thinking he was out-manoeuvring it, and it was in that arse-openingly terrifying realisation that he lost his nerve and ordered his battlecruisers to charge while he retreated as quickly as he could. It was Churchill I believe who later reflected that Jellicoe was the only man who could have won or lost the war in an afternoon. Great video ! Have a sub!
Very good video a love naval history and play a lot of naval games so Thump's up on good work so sad that hood died just like the battle cruiser named after him in a face of with Bismarck and prince Eugene
He turned back in oder to buy time for his pre-dreadnoughts to escape, also Churchill said, Jellicoe was the only man who could have lost the war in an afternoon. If the British had of destroyed the German fleet it would not change the status quo. But if Jellicoe had lost his fleet Britain could not continue the embargo against Germany. So the war would have been lost.
@@TayebMC Technically the destruction of the High Seas Fleet could have had MASSIVE impacts on German morale for the people and the land Army. Your entire Fleet of Warships has just been pummelled into the ground and the British blockade is still at full strength. The morale impact that would have would be insane.
"Captain, the Germans are slipping by behind us and slaughtering our destroyers in their way! Shouldnt we radio the Admiral?" "Do we have explicit orders to radio the Admiral?" "Well...no, sir." "Then its kind of a stupid question, isnt it?"
MareTranquil At lectures after the war, Jellicoe pointed out the fallacy of that kind of thinking. Not one report reached him that the HSF was breaking through at the tail of his fleet. If anything, he put it down to light forces scrapping. In the morning the sea was empty and the chance of a great victory was gone.
Beatty: "There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today." Lion's Captain: "There seems to be something wrong with your bloody signal officer today."
Jutland seems like a naval Battle of Antietam. The Germans inflicted more damage and casualties, but were forced to retire, where the British came off worse but maintained a good position in the naval war.
A good position? Good isn't strong enough. The British maintained a wonderful position. Germany was still blockaded and running out of supplies right at the moment their allies began to need help. Jutland, despite the British taking heavier losses was a big defeat for the Germans. They were forced into bad position by the British and were forced to resort to submarine warfare, which just made things worse
The only reason the Germans had less losses on the day is because they were closer to port, any further out and many more ships wouldn't have made it back. Even though they were kept afloat, they were so heavily damaged that they were out of action for the rest of the war.
@@walterfielding9079 Not exactly - Jutland scared off Britons from North Sea and Baltic and limited their action there only to mine duties. Germans later were able to put Russian fleet out of action, perform several landings in Baltic States and liberate Finland from Russia and Britons barely could do anything to prevent that.
Although the Invincible class carrier HMS Invincible caused complete terror for the Argentine forces during the Falklands war so maybe that wins some respect back to the name
My great grandfather was an officer on board the HMS Spitfire when it was rammed by the SMS Nassau. A six meter portion of the Nassau's armour plating was left on Spitfire after the battle, and my great grandfather took a small portion of that plating home as a souvenir.
Artillery ordnance fired during Jutland: Germans: 2,424 shells 12", 1,150 shells 11", in total 1,237 tons of explosives. British: 1,239 shells 15", 1,575 shells 13.5", 1,784 shells 12", in total 2,800 tons of explosives. Germans lost a tonnage of 61,180 with 2.551 sailors, British lost 115,025 tons with 6,274 men. German gunnery precision and British armour effectiveness: 93 tons sunk and 5 sailors killed per incoming ton, British gunnery precision and German armour effectiveness: 22 tons sunk and less than 1 sailor killed per incoming ton. To make things worse the pre-dreadnought battleship Pommern was sunk by a British torpedo and the battlecruiser Lützow was intentionally sunk by own torpedos, the only two big German ships lost during the battle, so that the British artillery actually sunk not a single one of their German opponents. "There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today" - Just today?
@@historigraph The British gunpowder charges were contained in textile fabric and the German ones in brass cartridges. Another good explanation why so many powder explosions occured on the British ships.
Maxim Kretsch, but, as an American put it, the German Navy has assaulted it's jailer, but is back in jail. The reason for the blowing up of the British ships was that the anti-flash doors were left open to improve the rate of fire. A very foolish mistake!
@@nairdamorton5148, agreed. I've read that the British knew their fire was as accurate as that of the Germans were were trying, as those figures indicate, to make up for that by firing more. To do that, they left doors open and stacked explosives in passages. As a result, a shell penetrating anywhere could blow an entire ship apart.
@@Inkling777, yes, that is exactly right. The light conditions had a lot to do with the accuracy, though the German rangefinders were superior to the British.
I belive the conversation went something like: Sailor: CAPTAIN! Captain: Ye- Yeah? Sailor: LOOOOK! Captain: *looks to the left* OH FUCK, NO NO NO NO NO NO NO *random screaming*
TLDR Version: Beatty - suckered by Hipper Jellico - deployed Grand Fleet masterfully Hipper - sprung trap on Beatty, sacrificed his ships to allow his teammates to escape into the night Scheer - masterfully rescued a perilous situation Really the only senior leader who comes off poorly from this battle was Beatty...
@@ilikelampshades6, he led them to the Grand Fleet...after foolishly deploying his ships into separated groups, then only when the consequences of his foolishness was clear...led the enemy north to his support...without telling Jellico anything useful. Lost multiple ships in an engagement he should have had an easier time with through lack of communication, poor deployment, and poor training of his crews. Still did the most poorly of the senior officers.
Beatty clearly made early mistakes but more or less salvaged the situation. I think the greater injustice is that Jellicoe's good decisions didn't earn more credit (especially given how little information he received from his subordinates, including Beatty).
I find it "amusing" that the Brits read Scheer's sortie instructions carefully and nearly won the day but threw it all away by not communicating with each other. Jellico put them in position for a monumental victory and their lack of communication up and down the line in action enabled Scheer to quietly steam home. Amazing.
I must say, though I have seen a number of good videos about naval warfare and a few good ones about this particular battle, no other channel comes close to the quality and especially the clarity of your videos. I already had a pretty good idea about how this battle went down, but a few things i never quite understood, until I watched this. Thank you for making such excellent content, I love what you're doing!
My grandfather told me about my great grand father "When he heard the canons it was like lightning that just keept going and going" Btw if you are Intrested I would like to reccomend the Jutland museum in Thyborøn in Denmark
I've seen Jellicoe's and Beatty's graves in St Paul's Cathedral. They're ignored because Admiral Nelson's tomb is next to them. Interesting to see al three and all of the other graves in there
Fun Fact: The then Prince Albert was on board HMS Collingwood during the battle. Why is he so important? In 1937 he would become King George VI the father of Queen Elizabeth II
This was incredibly well done. For all the crap that Jellicoe got, I think that considering he performed perfectly, given the faulty information. He completely outmaneuvered Scheer, and his ability to coordinate so many vessels in an era of limited lines of communication is remarkable.
In the grand scheme of things he sustained very acceptable losses while maintaining a tight the grip on the seas. Not a a dream outcome by any stretch but an acceptable draw to stay at the top.
Unopposed under crimson skies Immortalized over time Their legend will rise And their foes can't believe their eyes Believe their size as they fall And the Dreadnoughts dread nothing at all
A hull of steel and all the guns to serve the fleet Unrival fire power riding the waves to war A devastating blow will send their foes down bellow Fearless armada now bombarding the shore Light up the nigth when cannons roar In fear of nothing They lead a Navy into war!
The North Sea has drawn them near the fleets of the High seas approached a contest of titans commenced these days will dictate their fate The grand fleet prepared their guns Unleashed as The Dreadnoughts Clash At Last!
@@historigraph Actually, there was a RN rear admiral in charge of Room 40 but you are correct, there were civilians doing the code breaking. However, what was lacking was the knowledge of how to properly interpret the decoded signals as the Admiralty forbade direct communication between Room 40 and vessels at sea. You mentioned the advice from the Admiralty saying Scheer was in port - that came about because an officer walked into Room 40 and asked where a particular German call-sign known to be used by Scheer was. It was in port where it always was because he changed call-signs when he sailed. Room 40 was not given the opportunity to explain or clarify. It was one of many RN failures that day.
@@peterlovett5841 You're absolutely right. What I said in the video was an attempt to compress the implication of that event (Cpt Jackson's actions in relation to Room 40) into a single sentence, for the purposes of brevity.
@@historigraph Understood. The history of Room 40 makes fascinating reading and it makes me believe that the UK was far ahead of the Germans in both world wars in cryptography and the breaking thereof.
Thank God by the Second World War the code breakers were mostly trusted. There was problems but with people like Churchill in charge, the code breakers were mostly appreciated and able to prove themselves and their art. And it can be argued that the British code breakers won World War II
Bravo! The best documentary, with the best and easiest to understand explanation of a complicated, complex sea battle, involving 200+ warships. The debacle of Admiral Arbuthnot in HMS Defense and HMS Warrior was lightly covered and the intervention of the old pre-dreadnought German Battleships, in behalf of the battered, near sinking German Battlecruisers at a critical moment. The old guys distracted the Brit Battleships from finishing off the badly wounded German Battlecruisers. The 5-minute pre-dreadnoughts saved the day for their counterparts.
At Jutland the Brits lost several large warships (along with most of their crews) to massive internal explosions in their ships' magazines. For good reason, the ship's magazines were one of the best armored sections of a warship, as a spark or fire in that area would almost certainly destroy the entire ship from within. In addition, Royal Navy battlewagons were built with "flash doors" to minimize the chance that their propellant stocks of Cordite would touch-off accidentally or in the heat of battle, subsequently destroying the ship. Unfortunately, the British gunnery officers placed such a high value on rapidly reloading and firing their ship's guns, that their gun crews tended - or were even encouraged - to ignore safety instructions to keep their propellant room flash doors closed between shots. It's suspected that this dangerous habit contributed to the loss of so many British warships at Jutland.
No, the British gunnery Officers DIDN'T place high value on rapid reloading. Beatty did, He told his inexperienced crew to stack cordite near the turrets for faster reloading, something the Grand Fleet never did. Beatty's BC Squadron had not had time to sail with the Grand Fleet and practice gunnery skills, something that would have been invaluable in this battle, since Beatty's Squadron outranged the High Seas Fleet and could have easily pounded them until the Grand Fleet showed up to deal the killing blow. TL'DR: Beatty was a retard.
I was rewatching Drachinifel’s fantastic 3 part series in Jutland and was looking for a animated map to get a slightly better top down view of the battle. After sorting through a very few battle maps I found on TH-cam and thinking about how garbage they all were I saw a channel I was already subscribed to had a video on the battle (one that I had even watched already years ago). I guess my brain is running a bit slow this afternoon but this was exactly what I was after and I had forgotten how well made this video actually was. Between this and the Drachinfel videos I have gotten the Jutland fix I was craving today. So thanks for this and next time I will make sure to check here first for a video on whatever military rabbit hole I find myself in. Cheers
I've binge watched this series for a few days now and my only complaint was the simple battle graphics..... it makes sense now and is easier to understand. Well done Sir!
I truely appreciate the detailed individual battles that take place during an unfortunate war. It’s far more intriguing than just they won and they lost
After this one the Germans were not so keen as to get into another one. With correct handling of ammunition and better shells on the part of the RN the out come would have been very different. The High sees fleet got lucky and they knew it.
The best and clearest explanation about what happened at Jutland. I have watched other videos about the topic, yet this one is the best. Congratulations on a job well done! You earned a new sub!
It always baffled me why Beatty was lionised and Jellicoe maligned after this battle. Beatty led a poorly trained battle cruiser squadron recklessly into battle. He could have kept Hipper at arms length while he pummeled him with 13.5in and 12in shells but instead inexplicably let the Germans fire first. Jellicoe maneuvered his fleet expertly, and had he been better informed by both Beatty and naval intelligence, would have won a decisive victory.
Beatty was extremely wealthy and had 'influence' in the right places. Also, as Jellicoe's successor as commander of the Grand Fleet, and later as First Sea Lord, he was in a position to censor the official record, and ensure that it said the right things about him.
I am two years late to this video and this is by far the best explanation of what happened at Jutland, thank you and keep up the great work, working my way through the WW2 Norwegian campaign currently
Great video. Fun fact. There is a single surviving ship from the battle of Jutland and one of only 3 WWI warships surviving today. C-class light cruiser HMS Caroline. She’s an absolutely gorgeous ship after been lovingly restored in recent years and opened as a museum ship in the Titanic Quarter in Belfast. Being over there for a Noel Gallagher gig last year and looking for something to do. Me and my ma just spontaneously ended up going on the tour of her and I ended up staggered. If you ever find yourself in Belfast for a weekend, I wholly suggest you get yourself aboard. It’s a shame the British government hasn’t make more of an effort to preserve surviving ships of both World Wars, I mean 1 of the other 2 ships left (HMS Saxifrage/President) is privately owned and there are/were fears that she might end up getting scrapped without funding.
If the british hadn't known about a plan and didn't got the entire fleet out of port, could Scheer's plan have worked? And what could have been the result?
It *would* be a sound plan. Since the British turned it around and did the exact same: Lure the opponent with a comparatively weak force towards your main force and destroy it. If Scheer and Hipper had their way, it's entirely possible that the entirety of Beatty's force minus a few Battlecruisers and Super Dreadnoughts (like 4 Battlecruisers of 6 and one Super dreadnought of 4 sunk) would be at the bottom of the ocean, with the rest severely damaged. If this happened it wouldn't really change _too_ much, but of course it would be a severe loss of prestige to the British, Beatty would also have been fired, given he survives. Also, the Blockade might just have been eased a little, compared to before, until the US Navy would enter the fray, at that point the balance of power was ridiculous. (Edit: typo)
Well the British squadron had the advantage of greater speed though. But if they got caught by surprise at a bad time, and seeing their vulnerability to magazine explosions, you could expect a few more of them getting blown up before managing to escape
@@michelangelobuonarroti4958 'Also, the Blockade might just have been eased a little, compared to before' lol wut. Why? Losing a few ships, even a squadron wouldn't have done a thing to affect the blockage.
Great video man!! Congrats! The mix of game footage, archive, animation to perfectly understand the maneuvers invoked in the battle… keep it up! 🫶🏻🫶🏻 cheers from Colombia, South America
a hellishly confused fight and one I've read several accounts of. This is the flat out best illustration of the battle I've found and it cleared up much that I'd been foggy about. Many thanks for the effort put in.
Both sides made the mistake of trying to use battlecruisers as battleships. They weren't built to stand in for battleships, they were built to hunt down smaller ships that could elude battleships using their speed, and tear them apart with their big guns when they caught them. They had enough armor to withstand fire from many of the smaller guns, but not enough to stand against a battleship, or even another battlecruiser. They were supposed to run away from ships with guns powerful enough to penetrate them.
What a perfectly wonderful concise portrayal of the the Battle of Jutland and as you correctly state the last and sensational battle at sea between surface fleets. Makes the United States emergence in the later 1900s all the more spectacular after this finale to the 159 years of British industrial 🏭 innovative might. Bravo Sir. 🇬🇧😎
I really enjoy your content. I can see the hardwork you ve been putting in the making. I d like to see a video on aircraft carriers and how they have appeared, similar to the one on the dreadnoughts :D
Communication with such large fleets in difficult visibility and the general lack of situational overview lead to the blunders. Today with satellites, Drones, mobile telephony we can barely imagine what it must have been like to command a massive navy or army being almost blind to the situation.
Fantastic video as usual! Jutland is so interesting because it was such a massive, epic clash of the two largest navies in the world, yet in the end it was essentially indecisive. The British took heavier losses, but the Germans were unable to break the blockade.
Anders Schmich Very true, but if you look closely at the figures, the Germans lost more ships as a percentage of their original fleet. It could be pointed out that while the HSF achieved a tactical victory, Grand Fleet achieved the more important strategic victory. Jellicoe returned to Scapa Flow, refuelled and re-ammunitioned his fleet and reported he was ready for sea again in short order. The Germans came out once or twice more, but never took on Grand fleet again. After the battle, 5 more new ships (battlecruisers) joined Grand Fleet and damaged ships (eg HMS Warspite) were repaired and when the US joined the war a complete battle squadron went to Scapa Flow. The Germans added two battleships in that time and most of the High Seas Fleet was lost in the mass scuttle at Scapa Flow in 1919.
Germany has always been like: „Quality over Quantity“ UK has always been like: „Oh look, a single German Warship! Let the entire Navy, Air Force and Army Force hunt it“
@KuBa Bala especially if it's the Americans going after the single Taliban 😂 but then a again you country does have the money to waste bombs willy nilly
I think you didn't mention that whole German plan was alredy known to a british. It was real stroke of a Genius that cause so many damage to a much stronger enemy who, by the way, knows all your plans.
I work at Imperial War Museum North in Manchester and we have a life ring from HMS Indefatiguable. Of the roughly 1400 men on board only TWO survived when it sunk.
A good example of tactical vs strategic victory if I've ever seen one. The British fleet was massive and well-developed. They could afford to take losses despite the German gunnery. At the end of the day, they put more ships in the water than the Germans and that decided a significant part of the war.
Every time I watch this video, I get chills when the First Scouting Group charges the British battle line to cover the retreat of their fellow Germans. Bless their bravery.
That was the most concise and well written summary of Jutland I’ve ever watched/listened. Nicely done! Edit: Have I mentioned I actually studied up on British Dreadnoughts and can attest that you got the flash fire thing in a pan eh. geddit? XD
Battle of Gallipolli next maybe? Also map is wrong in 0.40 German- Danish border was further north, Germany had to give up land to Danmark even though they did not join the war.
I remember reading in a book, I can't remember the name but when one of those British dreadnoughts exploded the actual turret fixture lifted higher then the the ships bridge.
makes me wonder how much damage the Bayern could have inflicted on the british if she was involved but she want cuz she was still being build but i assume a lot with those 15inch buggers
Probably not much more than was done already. The problem with the British battlecruisers was their battle practices (they left safety doors open in battle). The British had 6 15" gun vessels available at the battle (4 Queen Elizabeth and 2 Revenge class battleships) If you're thinking of "what if this was a year later", then the British would have also had 2 15" gun battlecruisers (Renown and Repulse); the 5th Battle Squadron could have been at full strength (5 Queen Elizabeth class battleships (QE herself was in dock during the actual battle)) and they'd have had another couple of Revenge class ships for the battle line.
I wonder how different things would have been if jellicoe was properly informed of the high seas fleet's manoeuvre for the reef. It seems absurd that the destroyer screen didn't radio him when they were engaged.
Alright next up: 1) Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal 2) Battle of the North Cape 3) Battle of Surigao Straits 4) Battle of Cape Matapan or Battle of Calabria
Slight error: Scheers call sign WAS still operating at port, but he was using a different call sign when at sea. The British intelligence knew this, but answered a question on where the call sign was without warning they knew the German admiral and fleet were at sea
@@mircomartinez2666 I never said they didn't. That is completely irrelevant to the point I was making. Nice try. I was literally just saying that the only reason they even had Dreadnoughts, was because they stole the idea of the design. Stop twisting what I'm saying. I never said the Germans didn't have their own doctrines. I'm just pointing out that Dreadnoughts came from Britain first. HMS Dreadnought (1906) ''Lmao'', really? You laughed your arse off over your own attempted strawman? Cool story bro. Merry Christmas.
@@ThePalaeontologist Lmao you're literally sperging out because you're proven wrong. British dreadnoughts had nothing to do with Germans ones except for both being bigger and having bigger guns. Especially your comment about espionage is such bullshit since countries like France had Dreadnoughts before Germany.
The battlecruiser was another brainchild of the great Admiral Fisher. He advocated them as the solution for the amoured cruisers that were in vogue at the time as commerce raiders. They were as large as dreadnouts with the same big guns. They sacrificed armour for speed. They were never meant to face off in battle with battleships, but being used as scouts, they would, inevitably, come into contact with battleships and the rest is history. The latest post war battle cruisers were converted to aircraft carriers by most powers before WW2.
Good explanation - thx! It is not an art with superior power to win in this way. How the Germans, on the other hand, lured, fought and came back safely against this superior force, very well! Excellent German seamanship.
9:26 Scheer turning around reconnecting with the British forces was accidental as he had misjudged where the Grand Fleet would be and accidentally steamed right back into it
This was a very clear and concise summary that I wish had been readily available during my high school study of WW1... While it had been a strategic victory for the British, many blamed Jellicoe for not decisively destroying the German fleet. However, as we see here Admiral Jellicoe was hampered by bad intel from the Admiralty as well as terrible communications from his own fleet. With the amount of fire power Jellicoe had, I doubt the German High Seas fleet would have survived had Jellicoe been able to properly ascertain the location of the Germans.
Admiral Hood being killed in a magazine explosion is ironic to say the least given the fate of his namesake...
Daniel no shit
HMS Hood that sunk by Bismarck were named after Napoleonic war figure,Admiral Samuel Hood actually
Andros The Conqueror Fun Fact: He Is Nelson's Teacher
Different Admiral Hood though...
A different admiral, but the surname is the same.
Counts for the irony factor rather well.
This is the clearest explanation of Jutland I've ever seen.
thank you!
@@historigraph It was really good. Video is a good format for showing how the different formations move relative to one another, and Jutland is a confusing battle which you make much clearer.
If you ever want to make sense of an even more confusing battle, then WWII's Operation Crusader would be a great one.
yeah way better than those documentaries that say what the ships are doing but just show stock footage of guns shooting while you sit there trying to understand wtf is going on.
The Great War channel also made a good video about the battle.
@Kriegsmarine Raum Schlactschiffe Executor I love this a bit more
By far more understable than anything Ive ever seen on the Battle of Jutland
thank you!
A very good synopsis; I just finished Massie's "Castles of Steel", goes quite in depth (pun intended). You left out the periscope Beatty supposedly saw that no one else did, or any mention of subs. The Brits didn't learn their lesson from this, and left the ammo hatches open on the Hood when engaged with Bismarck and Prinz Eugen.
he did not mention any of the 11 German ships sunk. go read a history book WHY ???
voided
@@schaferhundschmidt1798 where the hell did you hear that? The British very much learned the lesson after this and actually became pretty paranoid about detonations, so much so that in the Battle of the Denmark Strait, the one where Hood was lost, Prince of Wales was having trouble firing its guns in part because its ammo hatches were too tightly built and they couldn't open as the ship flexed in its turn.
The Hood exploded because it took a penetrating hit to its magazine, and flash doors are there to prevent FLASH from starting larger fires and explosions. If the magazine is breached and starts burning short of it flooding there's little that can stop the force of the entire thing going up and taking the ship with it.
So in a nutshell the british gunned poorly, especially at the start, but maneuvered wonderfully
That’s a good way of putting it
Not really, apart from Beatty's ships which lacked the proper facilities, most British battleships shot as well if not better than the Germans. The newer British rangefinders were markedly superior the German ones but not yet fitted to all ships. The position of the ships relative to the sun, and smoke, were major factors in achieving hits. Arguably the main reason the German fleet wasn't decimated was due to faulty British shells. I can't remember the exact quote but one of the German commanders said after the battle that it would have been a disaster if the British shells had penetrated more reliably.
@@historigraph Did Royal Navy learn from their powder charge mistakes from Jutland? You said that the British ships that detonated were keeping too many charges near turrets. It seems German Dreadnoughts could take a harder beating because they had better storage? In WWII, USS Arizona detonated and it too was a WWI era Battleship
@@nagasako7 The problem was incorrect storage not design by itself. They kept propellant in unsafe places, between the magazines and the turrets, which could result in a chain reaction if a shell landed in the right spot. The storage was better on German ships but it's the bad quality of British shells that saved them. Arizona was caught off guard and took a direct hit to its magazine. It was unlucky, not a design problem.
@@colobossable "It was nothing but the poor quality of their bursting charges which saved us from disaster." Hipper.
Fun fact- Major Francis Harvey of the Royal Marines Artillery was a senior gunnery officer on the HMS Lion, his section suffered a direct hit blowing off both his legs but despite this he still had the prescence of mind to order the powder magazine be flooded- preventing the entire ship from exploding and saving over a thousand lives. He died shortly afterwards from his injuries, but was awarded the Victoria Cross for his gallantry
Thank you. I was aware of the story but didn't know the officers name. I heard he dragged himself across the floor to reach the intercom.
Imagine being so mediocre that you're literally named "Goodenough."
Still it means you deserve whatever position you have because, even if you're not the greatest, you're still Goodenough.
And yet he proved himself to be among the most apt British commanders in this battle
@@samarkand1585: Maybe the Brits have very high standards so "good enough" means a lot. (Maybe it was quite appropriate that Beatty wasn't named Goodenough.)
'Goodenough' for the British is equal to 'Superlative' for everybody else.
Well you can say he was goodenough
A very confusing and frustrating battle, for those taking part and historians. I read a very good book about it when I was at school which left a deep impression on me. One has to feel sorry for Jellicoe, who had a tremendous amount of responsibility on his shoulders, and who was very poorly served by Beatty and by the light cruisers whose job it was to report the position of the enemy fleet. I think the aptly named Commodore Goodenough was the only one to send accurate and regular reports. One thing which is rarely mentioned is that the British used a volatile form of propellant for their guns - one which tended to burn violently, causing uncontrollable "flash fires" when ignited by nearby shell hits. German cordite burned but did not explode in similar circumstances. This is one reason why German ships did not blow up - despite repeated hits - at the Falkland Islands, Jutland and later in World War Two.
Also there was an emphasis with the British on fast gunnery, and most British ships kept a massive amount of spare charges for the guns heaped in corridors and nearby the guns, also leaving a lot of doors open so that when they were hit this set them off and created a chain reaction. I'm sure there's a more technical explanation of this, this is just something I read or saw in a documentary somewhere so can't quite remember the exact details.
"Sponsored by World of Warships"
Ah, Really?
@@rupertbaskerville Promotion from First Officer to Captain within the Royal Navy was predicated upon how smart the ship looked, discipline was God. Any chipped paint, torn uniforms, or worn bedding could cost someone their chance at the big chair, so no expense was spared in maintaining the entire fleet in parade readiness rather than combat readiness. Not only would a ship's discretionary budget be weighted heavily towards esthetics, but a well-off First Officer would often dip into their own pocket to fund another paint job. Promotion became a matter of wealth and connections as much or more than merit.
Even the training budget wasn't spared the need for ever more textiles, meaning that Royal Navy gunners often couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Doctrine was adjusted to compensate, with rate of fire overruling basic safety.
There isn't a single elevator running ammo up from the magazine to turret. Rather, it's a series of small, one story elevators, basically dumb waiters, interconnecting the decks between. Propellant is loaded into one dumb waiter, the armored shutter is closed, the propellant gets sent up, another shutter is opened, propellant retrieved, shutter closed, propellant sent across the room into another dumb waiter, and on up the height of the ship's interior to the turret. In theory. In practice, those shutters were just left open at all times in combat, meaning that any detonation could potentially consume the entire turret, magazine, and the barbette (turret vertical shaft) between.
Those Battlecruisers weren't bad ships, it's just that they'd already accomplished their mission. In the pre-war years the British performed a naval study regarding wartime shipping, and concluded that any major power could annihilate British shipping across the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean just by deploying a couple dozen cruisers as commerce raiders. Meanwhile escorting every merchant ship would take a couple hundred cruisers, so passive defense wasn't an option.
Enter the Royal Navy Battlecruiser, a vessel specifically designed to hunt down and sink any commerce raiding cruiser. Hunting the hunters. This strategy was entirely successful, despite some early successes the German merchant raider fleet had been comprehensively neutralized by the time of Jutland. Too bad for the Battlecruisers, who lacking any other mission got sent North to fight German Battleships whose guns could completely overmatch Battlecruiser armor.
Firing a Battlecruiser main battery naval shell required 3 things: the projectile, from one to six propellant bag(s), and the primer bag.
Propellant was remarkably resilient, able to withstand major shocks without detonating. Simply trying to fire it out of the cannon wouldn't have resulted in detonation. This was deliberate so as to prevent an internal magazine explosion from consuming the entire ship, in theory only those propellant bags physically inside the blast would ignite.
The primer bag was small, roughly the size of an envelope, and mas meant to be loaded inside the gun after the final propellant bag. In Royal Navy service though, and in the name of rate of fire, primer bags were sowed directly onto the backs of propellants. Completely defeating the whole premise of having separate primer sacks. This of course meant that if for whatever reason a propellant bag rolled off a shelf or out out of someone's hands, and landed primer on the deck primer end down it would likely detonate, consuming everyone nearby with it.
With Battlecruiser armor having no way to keep Battleship scale violence outside, with an unmeritocratic culture of pretension leaving every armored shutter securely in the useless position, and with that same culture placing every propellant bag in the vessel already ready to detonate with it's own integrated primer, any single hit could potentially take out the entire vessel.
Then they got hit.
@@rupertbaskerville Yes. The British had been so dominant at sea for over a century, that in their training they had started to value the wrong things.
How good the ships looked and how clean things were, had often taken precedence over shooting practice, as gun blasts damaged things and created a lot of dirt and marks. And drills that could be done without actually firing the guns, like the focus on loading times, had taken on too much importance.
But then the Americans were even worse in a lot of those aspects.
Germany didn't use cordite iirc. It was only used by the UK.
Sailor: Sir the German fleet is tearing through our destroyers!
Commander: **looks at large German fleet** eh probably fake news
@@Peoples_Republic_of_Devonshire sthu. You just couldn’t go one video without bringing up politics. Why do you alienate your political opponents so much?
@@PanzerkampfwagenausfTschechosl this is the world we're living in today
Jellicoe wasn’t told about the attack on the destroyers.
@@Peoples_Republic_of_Devonshire this is a video about british fleet vs german fleet not some usa political debate area
This is an incredible video. Can scarcely imagine how much work went into it. Kudos
9:27 There was some method to Scheer's madness here. Having retreated from a previous sticky situation, he knew that in the remaining hours of daylight the Grand Fleet, with a several knot speed advantage, could outrun him and cut him off before he'd get back to Germany. Thus, rather than just running away immediately, he judged it better to go for another spear jab which should have crossed Jellicoe's T from behind (no metaphor intended) had the British turned South-West to pursue the Germans as expected.
Unfortunately for Scheer, Jellicoe had cautiously decided not to run them down immediately for fear of losing ships to the German flotilla's torpedoes. This meant that he took a wider approach leading his fleet away and then Southward. Thus Scheer accidentally attacked straight back into the British battleline thinking he was out-manoeuvring it, and it was in that arse-openingly terrifying realisation that he lost his nerve and ordered his battlecruisers to charge while he retreated as quickly as he could.
It was Churchill I believe who later reflected that Jellicoe was the only man who could have won or lost the war in an afternoon.
Great video ! Have a sub!
Very good video a love naval history and play a lot of naval games so Thump's up on good work so sad that hood died just like the battle cruiser named after him in a face of with Bismarck and prince Eugene
Yeah ok that makes more sense, thank you.
He turned back in oder to buy time for his pre-dreadnoughts to escape, also Churchill said, Jellicoe was the only man who could have lost the war in an afternoon. If the British had of destroyed the German fleet it would not change the status quo. But if Jellicoe had lost his fleet Britain could not continue the embargo against Germany. So the war would have been lost.
@@TayebMC
Technically the destruction of the High Seas Fleet could have had MASSIVE impacts on German morale for the people and the land Army.
Your entire Fleet of Warships has just been pummelled into the ground and the British blockade is still at full strength. The morale impact that would have would be insane.
i've heard real accounts about this, they we're driven out and that's why their admiral is called admiral portside and vice admiral ran away.
"Captain, the Germans are slipping by behind us and slaughtering our destroyers in their way! Shouldnt we radio the Admiral?"
"Do we have explicit orders to radio the Admiral?"
"Well...no, sir."
"Then its kind of a stupid question, isnt it?"
MareTranquil At lectures after the war, Jellicoe pointed out the fallacy of that kind of thinking. Not one report reached him that the HSF was breaking through at the tail of his fleet. If anything, he put it down to light forces scrapping. In the morning the sea was empty and the chance of a great victory was gone.
@@Wombat1916 So basically you're saying his thinking is a fallacy but then you go on agreeing with his joke. Fascinating
@@samarkand1585 No, you just failed to understand what he said.
Buy the Admiral didn't believe the 10:40 message though.
Beatty: "There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today."
Lion's Captain: "There seems to be something wrong with your bloody signal officer today."
Lol Seymore
Jutland seems like a naval Battle of Antietam. The Germans inflicted more damage and casualties, but were forced to retire, where the British came off worse but maintained a good position in the naval war.
A good position? Good isn't strong enough. The British maintained a wonderful position. Germany was still blockaded and running out of supplies right at the moment their allies began to need help. Jutland, despite the British taking heavier losses was a big defeat for the Germans. They were forced into bad position by the British and were forced to resort to submarine warfare, which just made things worse
The only reason the Germans had less losses on the day is because they were closer to port, any further out and many more ships wouldn't have made it back. Even though they were kept afloat, they were so heavily damaged that they were out of action for the rest of the war.
@@walterfielding9079 Not exactly - Jutland scared off Britons from North Sea and Baltic and limited their action there only to mine duties. Germans later were able to put Russian fleet out of action, perform several landings in Baltic States and liberate Finland from Russia and Britons barely could do anything to prevent that.
Este comentario de Firehead es breve y conciso y lo mejor ke he leido en mi vida como compendio de la batalla.
Kise escribir Fiireheart
History teacher: If you're interested in history read a book over the holidays
Me: Nah I'll just watch this it's better
Imergence if u cant enjoy books thats really sad
IllICITGRYNE if you can write an interesting history book please do. The ones they give us now are boring as shit.
IllICITGRYNE Lol my history teacher uses simple history's videos to teach us about history
IllICITGRYNE I'm reading a 700 page book on Vietnam lol
ItzTheDude that’s very depressing
2:20 there’s an error. You said Beaty steamed west, but he steamed east, unless he drove his ships onto England.
Good catch- I misspoke
River Yang "There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today"
"That might be because you've driven them onto land, sir"
@@LordDim1 yep
@@LordDim1 im dying xD
Thus the first landships were created which would be used to break trough the german lines at the Somme and ended the war before Christmas.
Goodenough?
Geezus the Brits. Gotta love it
I actually lived on a road named after that man I thought the council had pulled a name out of its arse till I did some research on the name
There seem to be something wong with our bloody ships today
: that goodenough
*What name should I give to my newborn son? HMMMM*
@@davidliu2243 badenough
Goodgrief
Though this was a british victory it must be embarrassing when one of your ships that was sunk was literally called "invincible"
The big bob probably to promote self confidence and pride and install fear into the enemy. These names were really cool
Although the Invincible class carrier HMS Invincible caused complete terror for the Argentine forces during the Falklands war so maybe that wins some respect back to the name
I’m fairly certainly the Naussaus ended killing more German ships than the British did
Well, you know Britain's luck with ships labelled as 'invincible'
Oof
My great grandfather was an officer on board the HMS Spitfire when it was rammed by the SMS Nassau. A six meter portion of the Nassau's armour plating was left on Spitfire after the battle, and my great grandfather took a small portion of that plating home as a souvenir.
Nassau? the slow ass ship with 6 mighty guns?
Artillery ordnance fired during Jutland:
Germans: 2,424 shells 12", 1,150 shells 11", in total 1,237 tons of explosives. British: 1,239 shells 15", 1,575 shells 13.5", 1,784 shells 12", in total 2,800 tons of explosives. Germans lost a tonnage of 61,180 with 2.551 sailors, British lost 115,025 tons with 6,274 men. German gunnery precision and British armour effectiveness: 93 tons sunk and 5 sailors killed per incoming ton, British gunnery precision and German armour effectiveness: 22 tons sunk and less than 1 sailor killed per incoming ton. To make things worse the pre-dreadnought battleship Pommern was sunk by a British torpedo and the battlecruiser Lützow was intentionally sunk by own torpedos, the only two big German ships lost during the battle, so that the British artillery actually sunk not a single one of their German opponents. "There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today" - Just today?
The main problem was that most British AP shells were essentially defective, and detonated on impact with outer hull
@@historigraph The British gunpowder charges were contained in textile fabric and the German ones in brass cartridges. Another good explanation why so many powder explosions occured on the British ships.
Maxim Kretsch, but, as an American put it, the German Navy has assaulted it's jailer, but is back in jail. The reason for the blowing up of the British ships was that the anti-flash doors were left open to improve the rate of fire. A very foolish mistake!
@@nairdamorton5148, agreed. I've read that the British knew their fire was as accurate as that of the Germans were were trying, as those figures indicate, to make up for that by firing more. To do that, they left doors open and stacked explosives in passages. As a result, a shell penetrating anywhere could blow an entire ship apart.
@@Inkling777, yes, that is exactly right. The light conditions had a lot to do with the accuracy, though the German rangefinders were superior to the British.
7:37
[GERMANS SWEAT NERVOUSLY]
it's like the Kul Tiras fleet arriving at Boreas...
Like the imperial jumping out of hyperspace in return of the jedi, except the germans lost.
How many British ships were there for each german ship? 10?
@@El_Presidente_5337 No the gap was not quite that big I believe it was something like 2:1 British:German (dreadnoughts not overall ships)
SSH-40 *b r i t a n n i a r u l e s t h e w a v e s*
7:37
I believe the words "mein gott" may have been uttered by several thousand German sailors as the entire Grand fleet emerged onto the battle.
Slightly Right Of Centre quickly followed by “scheiße”.
You overestimate amount of people open,exposed and high enough on ship(earth ain't flat) on the main battle line.
I belive the conversation went something like:
Sailor: CAPTAIN!
Captain: Ye- Yeah?
Sailor: LOOOOK!
Captain: *looks to the left* OH FUCK, NO NO NO NO NO NO NO *random screaming*
Miles
th-cam.com/video/8UjWwMtrETk/w-d-xo.html
@@sleet1650 hahahaha
TLDR Version:
Beatty - suckered by Hipper
Jellico - deployed Grand Fleet masterfully
Hipper - sprung trap on Beatty, sacrificed his ships to allow his teammates to escape into the night
Scheer - masterfully rescued a perilous situation
Really the only senior leader who comes off poorly from this battle was Beatty...
Beattie was the one who led the entire high seas fleet into the mercy of the grand fleet. The best move of the match!
@@ilikelampshades6, he led them to the Grand Fleet...after foolishly deploying his ships into separated groups, then only when the consequences of his foolishness was clear...led the enemy north to his support...without telling Jellico anything useful. Lost multiple ships in an engagement he should have had an easier time with through lack of communication, poor deployment, and poor training of his crews.
Still did the most poorly of the senior officers.
I feel Beatty was well out of his depth here. An absolute moron to be fair
Beatty clearly made early mistakes but more or less salvaged the situation. I think the greater injustice is that Jellicoe's good decisions didn't earn more credit (especially given how little information he received from his subordinates, including Beatty).
I find it "amusing" that the Brits read Scheer's sortie instructions carefully and nearly won the day but threw it all away by not communicating with each other. Jellico put them in position for a monumental victory and their lack of communication up and down the line in action enabled Scheer to quietly steam home. Amazing.
I must say, though I have seen a number of good videos about naval warfare and a few good ones about this particular battle, no other channel comes close to the quality and especially the clarity of your videos.
I already had a pretty good idea about how this battle went down, but a few things i never quite understood, until I watched this. Thank you for making such excellent content, I love what you're doing!
Questionmark I was going to say the same thing. Very well done.
Still don't understand what the germans sailed into the line after retreating.
Good to see this great battle is finally getting the attention it deserves.
Likely wouldn't have without World of Warships sparking interest and sponsoring content.
You say that like it wasn't widely known beforehand lol. It's been one of the most well-known naval battles of all time for a full century now.
My grandfather told me about my great grand father "When he heard the canons it was like lightning that just keept going and going" Btw if you are Intrested I would like to reccomend the Jutland museum in Thyborøn in Denmark
I currently live in Jutland. I really want to visit this museum!
I've seen Jellicoe's and Beatty's graves in St Paul's Cathedral. They're ignored because Admiral Nelson's tomb is next to them. Interesting to see al three and all of the other graves in there
The Battle of Jutland was always confusing. Your presentation makes it crystal clear. I've watched it 3 times. Thanks!
Fun Fact: The then Prince Albert was on board HMS Collingwood during the battle. Why is he so important? In 1937 he would become King George VI the father of Queen Elizabeth II
Amazing video as always 🤓
reference lu salah satu nya dari sini ya bang wkw
Crazy to think that a generation before, ships of the line were built of wood and had sails. They would be in that same exact formation. Amazing.
Beatty did EXACTLY what Scheer wanted him to do. Beatty made just about every boneheaded decision that he could.
That's because he was an idiot.
... and Jellicoe's plan saved Beatty's bacon.
This was incredibly well done. For all the crap that Jellicoe got, I think that considering he performed perfectly, given the faulty information. He completely outmaneuvered Scheer, and his ability to coordinate so many vessels in an era of limited lines of communication is remarkable.
In the grand scheme of things he sustained very acceptable losses while maintaining a tight the grip on the seas. Not a a dream outcome by any stretch but an acceptable draw to stay at the top.
I've always found this battle really interesting. Cool to see that one of my favorite channels is covering it!
Edit: and actually understandable too.
Unopposed under crimson skies
Immortalized over time
Their legend will rise
And their foes can't believe their eyes
Believe their size as they fall
And the Dreadnoughts dread nothing at all
A hull of steel and all the guns to serve the fleet
Unrival fire power riding the waves to war
A devastating blow will send their foes down bellow
Fearless armada now bombarding the shore
Light up the nigth when cannons roar
In fear of nothing
They lead a Navy into war!
The North Sea has drawn them near
the fleets of the High seas approached
a contest of titans commenced
these days will dictate their fate
The grand fleet prepared their guns
Unleashed as The Dreadnoughts
Clash At Last!
Truth is the British admirals treated the code brakers with contempt and they didn't bother passing on the info to the fleet.
Yeah- there was a lot of snobbish behavior towards those civilian code breakers
@@historigraph Actually, there was a RN rear admiral in charge of Room 40 but you are correct, there were civilians doing the code breaking. However, what was lacking was the knowledge of how to properly interpret the decoded signals as the Admiralty forbade direct communication between Room 40 and vessels at sea. You mentioned the advice from the Admiralty saying Scheer was in port - that came about because an officer walked into Room 40 and asked where a particular German call-sign known to be used by Scheer was. It was in port where it always was because he changed call-signs when he sailed. Room 40 was not given the opportunity to explain or clarify. It was one of many RN failures that day.
@@peterlovett5841 You're absolutely right. What I said in the video was an attempt to compress the implication of that event (Cpt Jackson's actions in relation to Room 40) into a single sentence, for the purposes of brevity.
@@historigraph Understood. The history of Room 40 makes fascinating reading and it makes me believe that the UK was far ahead of the Germans in both world wars in cryptography and the breaking thereof.
Thank God by the Second World War the code breakers were mostly trusted. There was problems but with people like Churchill in charge, the code breakers were mostly appreciated and able to prove themselves and their art. And it can be argued that the British code breakers won World War II
Bravo! The best documentary, with the best and easiest to understand explanation of a complicated, complex sea battle, involving 200+ warships. The debacle of Admiral Arbuthnot in HMS Defense and HMS Warrior was lightly covered and the intervention of the old pre-dreadnought German Battleships, in behalf of the battered, near sinking German Battlecruisers at a critical moment. The old guys distracted the Brit Battleships from finishing off the badly wounded German Battlecruisers. The 5-minute pre-dreadnoughts saved the day for their counterparts.
Excellent. I have read many written accounts of the battle, but the visuals make this so much clearer. Thank you.
At Jutland the Brits lost several large warships (along with most of their crews) to massive internal explosions in their ships' magazines. For good reason, the ship's magazines were one of the best armored sections of a warship, as a spark or fire in that area would almost certainly destroy the entire ship from within. In addition, Royal Navy battlewagons were built with "flash doors" to minimize the chance that their propellant stocks of Cordite would touch-off accidentally or in the heat of battle, subsequently destroying the ship. Unfortunately, the British gunnery officers placed such a high value on rapidly reloading and firing their ship's guns, that their gun crews tended - or were even encouraged - to ignore safety instructions to keep their propellant room flash doors closed between shots. It's suspected that this dangerous habit contributed to the loss of so many British warships at Jutland.
No, the British gunnery Officers DIDN'T place high value on rapid reloading. Beatty did,
He told his inexperienced crew to stack cordite near the turrets for faster reloading, something the Grand Fleet never did. Beatty's BC Squadron had not had time to sail with the Grand Fleet and practice gunnery skills, something that would have been invaluable in this battle, since Beatty's Squadron outranged the High Seas Fleet and could have easily pounded them until the Grand Fleet showed up to deal the killing blow.
TL'DR: Beatty was a retard.
I was rewatching Drachinifel’s fantastic 3 part series in Jutland and was looking for a animated map to get a slightly better top down view of the battle. After sorting through a very few battle maps I found on TH-cam and thinking about how garbage they all were I saw a channel I was already subscribed to had a video on the battle (one that I had even watched already years ago). I guess my brain is running a bit slow this afternoon but this was exactly what I was after and I had forgotten how well made this video actually was. Between this and the Drachinfel videos I have gotten the Jutland fix I was craving today. So thanks for this and next time I will make sure to check here first for a video on whatever military rabbit hole I find myself in. Cheers
So:
HMS Defence did an offensive charge.
Goodenough was.. well, good enough.
HMS Invincible wasn't so invincible.
🤣
I've binge watched this series for a few days now and my only complaint was the simple battle graphics..... it makes sense now and is easier to understand. Well done Sir!
8:25 You forgot to mention that the Warspite's rudder getting hit and making circles actually saved the Warrior from being annihilated by the Germans
HMS Warspite was lucky in many situations even in WWII
I truely appreciate the detailed individual battles that take place during an unfortunate war. It’s far more intriguing than just they won and they lost
Lovely presentation! I'm always fascinated by ship battles like this. Surprising that there were not more of them in the first world war.
After this one the Germans were not so keen as to get into another one. With correct handling of ammunition and better shells on the part of the RN the out come would have been very different. The High sees fleet got lucky and they knew it.
@@TayebMC If you say so.
The best and clearest explanation about what happened at Jutland. I have watched other videos about the topic, yet this one is the best. Congratulations on a job well done! You earned a new sub!
This is the best war history channel on the internet
thank you!
No matter which of these videos I watch, the level of incompetence is outstanding.
It always baffled me why Beatty was lionised and Jellicoe maligned after this battle. Beatty led a poorly trained battle cruiser squadron recklessly into battle. He could have kept Hipper at arms length while he pummeled him with 13.5in and 12in shells but instead inexplicably let the Germans fire first. Jellicoe maneuvered his fleet expertly, and had he been better informed by both Beatty and naval intelligence, would have won a decisive victory.
Beatty was extremely wealthy and had 'influence' in the right places. Also, as Jellicoe's successor as commander of the Grand Fleet, and later as First Sea Lord, he was in a position to censor the official record, and ensure that it said the right things about him.
I am two years late to this video and this is by far the best explanation of what happened at Jutland, thank you and keep up the great work, working my way through the WW2 Norwegian campaign currently
RIP
To the 6,094 British navy men and 2,551 Imperial German navy men who were killed in the Battle of Jutland
Great video. Fun fact. There is a single surviving ship from the battle of Jutland and one of only 3 WWI warships surviving today. C-class light cruiser HMS Caroline.
She’s an absolutely gorgeous ship after been lovingly restored in recent years and opened as a museum ship in the Titanic Quarter in Belfast.
Being over there for a Noel Gallagher gig last year and looking for something to do. Me and my ma just spontaneously ended up going on the tour of her and I ended up staggered. If you ever find yourself in Belfast for a weekend, I wholly suggest you get yourself aboard.
It’s a shame the British government hasn’t make more of an effort to preserve surviving ships of both World Wars, I mean 1 of the other 2 ships left (HMS Saxifrage/President) is privately owned and there are/were fears that she might end up getting scrapped without funding.
If the british hadn't known about a plan and didn't got the entire fleet out of port, could Scheer's plan have worked? And what could have been the result?
Archangel17 It could have it seemed like a sound plan
It *would* be a sound plan. Since the British turned it around and did the exact same: Lure the opponent with a comparatively weak force towards your main force and destroy it. If Scheer and Hipper had their way, it's entirely possible that the entirety of Beatty's force minus a few Battlecruisers and Super Dreadnoughts (like 4 Battlecruisers of 6 and one Super dreadnought of 4 sunk) would be at the bottom of the ocean, with the rest severely damaged. If this happened it wouldn't really change _too_ much, but of course it would be a severe loss of prestige to the British, Beatty would also have been fired, given he survives. Also, the Blockade might just have been eased a little, compared to before, until the US Navy would enter the fray, at that point the balance of power was ridiculous.
(Edit: typo)
Well the British squadron had the advantage of greater speed though. But if they got caught by surprise at a bad time, and seeing their vulnerability to magazine explosions, you could expect a few more of them getting blown up before managing to escape
the british didn't know the plan. they didn't even know the entire german fleet was out of harbour.
@@michelangelobuonarroti4958 'Also, the Blockade might just have been eased a little, compared to before'
lol wut. Why? Losing a few ships, even a squadron wouldn't have done a thing to affect the blockage.
Great video man!! Congrats! The mix of game footage, archive, animation to perfectly understand the maneuvers invoked in the battle… keep it up! 🫶🏻🫶🏻 cheers from Colombia, South America
Btw. we Germans call it Skagerrakschlacht
No we call it Battle at Doggerbank
sorry was wrong
@Mr. Random - Dogger Bank is a shallow area of the North Sea. There was a previous battlecruiser action around that location in 1915
Exept in wasn't fought in Skagerrak but in the North Sea west of Jutland.
7:34 Maybe it's the music, but this game me the tinglies like the arrival of the Golden Armada.
Remarkable video. Very well done!
When you have double the numbers, even when you lose double the numbers, you're still the winner in the aftermath.
a hellishly confused fight and one I've read several accounts of. This is the flat out best illustration of the battle I've found and it cleared up much that I'd been foggy about.
Many thanks for the effort put in.
Both sides made the mistake of trying to use battlecruisers as battleships. They weren't built to stand in for battleships, they were built to hunt down smaller ships that could elude battleships using their speed, and tear them apart with their big guns when they caught them. They had enough armor to withstand fire from many of the smaller guns, but not enough to stand against a battleship, or even another battlecruiser. They were supposed to run away from ships with guns powerful enough to penetrate them.
After some years, I just had to rewatch this video.
incredible video about an incredible naval battle.
Thank you, my friend :)
Why the hell has no one made a movie about this???? From the perspective of one side or both this would still be an excellent movie
agreed
What a perfectly wonderful concise portrayal of the the Battle of Jutland and as you correctly state the last and sensational battle at sea between surface fleets. Makes the United States emergence in the later 1900s all the more spectacular after this finale to the 159 years of British industrial 🏭 innovative might. Bravo Sir. 🇬🇧😎
I really enjoy your content. I can see the hardwork you ve been putting in the making. I d like to see a video on aircraft carriers and how they have appeared, similar to the one on the dreadnoughts :D
I must concur with Brett D. This is the clearest explanation of Jutland I've ever seen. Thank you.
Amazing video again :) the blunders of both sides in all these naval battles is astonishing!
Communication with such large fleets in difficult visibility and the general lack of situational overview lead to the blunders. Today with satellites, Drones, mobile telephony we can barely imagine what it must have been like to command a massive navy or army being almost blind to the situation.
if one commander did his thing right 60% of the time, he'll probably win
The battleship era fascinates me and is something I wish we got to see more of in fiction.
How come the battle of the buldge video isn't allowed in the UK?
Otherwise brilliant video!
Because TH-cam is a very strange organisation that refuses to correct its mistakes
Fantastic video as usual! Jutland is so interesting because it was such a massive, epic clash of the two largest navies in the world, yet in the end it was essentially indecisive. The British took heavier losses, but the Germans were unable to break the blockade.
Anders Schmich Very true, but if you look closely at the figures, the Germans lost more ships as a percentage of their original fleet. It could be pointed out that while the HSF achieved a tactical victory, Grand Fleet achieved the more important strategic victory. Jellicoe returned to Scapa Flow, refuelled and re-ammunitioned his fleet and reported he was ready for sea again in short order. The Germans came out once or twice more, but never took on Grand fleet again. After the battle, 5 more new ships (battlecruisers) joined Grand Fleet and damaged ships (eg HMS Warspite) were repaired and when the US joined the war a complete battle squadron went to Scapa Flow.
The Germans added two battleships in that time and most of the High Seas Fleet was lost in the mass scuttle at Scapa Flow in 1919.
Germany has always been like: „Quality over Quantity“
UK has always been like: „Oh look, a single German Warship! Let the entire Navy, Air Force and Army Force hunt it“
You can't protect a globe-spanning empire with a small number of ships regardless of how good the individual ships are.
İt was in WW2,Germans had a big surface fleet in WW1 unlike WW2.
@KuBa Bala Multiple hidden explosives between you and the tent.
@@seneca983 The ships had to be equal or superior in quality.
@KuBa Bala especially if it's the Americans going after the single Taliban 😂 but then a again you country does have the money to waste bombs willy nilly
Thanks I've read a book on Jutland and very detailed however a picture is worth a thousand words.
I think you didn't mention that whole German plan was alredy known to a british. It was real stroke of a Genius that cause so many damage to a much stronger enemy who, by the way, knows all your plans.
This is real history. Raw and brutal. What a great documentary. History is awesome
Thank You for this! What an early gift for Christmas you certainly put Santa's elves to shame!
I work at Imperial War Museum North in Manchester and we have a life ring from HMS Indefatiguable. Of the roughly 1400 men on board only TWO survived when it sunk.
AND THE DREADNOUGHTS FEAR NOTHING AT ALL!
Excellent presentation of the courses and positions on the ships. MUCH better than others I have seen.
Amazing,your videos are always extremely enjoyable and really interesting.
A good example of tactical vs strategic victory if I've ever seen one. The British fleet was massive and well-developed. They could afford to take losses despite the German gunnery. At the end of the day, they put more ships in the water than the Germans and that decided a significant part of the war.
Fun fact: jellicoes son was in the SAS and formed the SBS.
Really?!!
Every time I watch this video, I get chills when the First Scouting Group charges the British battle line to cover the retreat of their fellow Germans. Bless their bravery.
That was the most concise and well written summary of Jutland I’ve ever watched/listened. Nicely done!
Edit: Have I mentioned I actually studied up on British Dreadnoughts and can attest that you got the flash fire thing in a pan eh. geddit? XD
The best naval war historian of modern time I know of. As expected a superb job.
Battle of Gallipolli next maybe?
Also map is wrong in 0.40 German- Danish border was further north, Germany had to give up land to Danmark even though they did not join the war.
I'm pretty sure it was a referendum right?
@@oreroundpvp896 Yeah it was. North Schleswig voted to join with Denmark because mostly Danes lived there.
I remember reading in a book, I can't remember the name but when one of those British dreadnoughts exploded the actual turret fixture lifted higher then the the ships bridge.
makes me wonder how much damage the Bayern could have inflicted on the british if she was involved but she want cuz she was still being build but i assume a lot with those 15inch buggers
Probably not much more than was done already. The problem with the British battlecruisers was their battle practices (they left safety doors open in battle).
The British had 6 15" gun vessels available at the battle (4 Queen Elizabeth and 2 Revenge class battleships)
If you're thinking of "what if this was a year later", then the British would have also had 2 15" gun battlecruisers (Renown and Repulse); the 5th Battle Squadron could have been at full strength (5 Queen Elizabeth class battleships (QE herself was in dock during the actual battle)) and they'd have had another couple of Revenge class ships for the battle line.
TheGoatRide and the new rangefinders... and better shells...
I wonder how different things would have been if jellicoe was properly informed of the high seas fleet's manoeuvre for the reef.
It seems absurd that the destroyer screen didn't radio him when they were engaged.
"Chatfield, there seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today."
5:54
Usually a shell hits our ship, makes a wonderful "ping" noise, and we then turn the enemy ships into a lovely new reef.
Alright next up:
1) Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal
2) Battle of the North Cape
3) Battle of Surigao Straits
4) Battle of Cape Matapan or Battle of Calabria
Slight error: Scheers call sign WAS still operating at port, but he was using a different call sign when at sea.
The British intelligence knew this, but answered a question on where the call sign was without warning they knew the German admiral and fleet were at sea
Full credit to that legendary German engineering
Yeah the German Battlecruisers particularly were very well engineered. Incredibly survivable ships.
@@historigraph Only even got that far though by stealing the Dreadnought concept from the British via espionage
@@ThePalaeontologistLmao Germany had a complete different naval doctrine and understanding of a Dreadnought than the UK.
@@mircomartinez2666 I never said they didn't. That is completely irrelevant to the point I was making. Nice try. I was literally just saying that the only reason they even had Dreadnoughts, was because they stole the idea of the design. Stop twisting what I'm saying.
I never said the Germans didn't have their own doctrines. I'm just pointing out that Dreadnoughts came from Britain first. HMS Dreadnought (1906)
''Lmao'', really? You laughed your arse off over your own attempted strawman? Cool story bro. Merry Christmas.
@@ThePalaeontologist Lmao you're literally sperging out because you're proven wrong. British dreadnoughts had nothing to do with Germans ones except for both being bigger and having bigger guns. Especially your comment about espionage is such bullshit since countries like France had Dreadnoughts before Germany.
Love to see a movie made of this battle...long overdue.
The battlecruiser was another brainchild of the great Admiral Fisher. He advocated them as the solution for the amoured cruisers that were in vogue at the time as commerce raiders. They were as large as dreadnouts with the same big guns. They sacrificed armour for speed. They were never meant to face off in battle with battleships, but being used as scouts, they would, inevitably, come into contact with battleships and the rest is history. The latest post war battle cruisers were converted to aircraft carriers by most powers before WW2.
Comprehensive documentary on the subject.
Thank you.
Good explanation - thx!
It is not an art with superior power to win in this way. How the Germans, on the other hand, lured, fought and came back safely against this superior force, very well! Excellent German seamanship.
9:26 Scheer turning around reconnecting with the British forces was accidental as he had misjudged where the Grand Fleet would be and accidentally steamed right back into it
Awesome stuff mate :)
This was a very clear and concise summary that I wish had been readily available during my high school study of WW1... While it had been a strategic victory for the British, many blamed Jellicoe for not decisively destroying the German fleet. However, as we see here Admiral Jellicoe was hampered by bad intel from the Admiralty as well as terrible communications from his own fleet. With the amount of fire power Jellicoe had, I doubt the German High Seas fleet would have survived had Jellicoe been able to properly ascertain the location of the Germans.
My great great uncle fought in that battle but drowned at sea
Wow. Do you know which ship he was on?
My god that's an awesome sight at 7:37 and 8:23 - it seems crazy to me that we had so many large ships available
Thank you so much for this video it’s great