{PDF} British and German Battlecruisers: Their Development
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BRITISH AND GERMAN BATTLECRUISERS: THEIR DEVELOPMENT AND OPERATIONS PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Michele Cosentino,Ruggero Stanglini | 256 pages | 14 Mar 2016 | Pen & Sword Books Ltd | 9781848321847 | English | Barnsley, United Kingdom A Century After the Castles of Steel: Lessons from the Battle of Jutland When Women Pray Hardcover T. Jakes Christian Inspirational No ratings or reviews yet. Save on Nonfiction Trending price is based on prices over last 90 days. You may also like. British Nonfiction Books in German. British Books. Personal Development Books. Dieting Personal Development Books. Personal Development Hardcover Books. German Magazines. But Scheer evaded the British once more and the German fleet disappeared into the mist, firing off torpedoes at its pursuers. Jellicoe followed his pre-battle plans for such a situation and turned away to avoid the torpedoes. By the time he could turn back and pursue the Germans, they had effectively escaped. As night fell, there were some small clashes that lasted through into the next morning. By then, the opportunity to inflict any real damage on the High Seas Fleet had been lost and Jellicoe was unwilling to engage in serious night fighting. In the confusion and darkness, the German fleet managed to get away. Jellicoe has been criticised for the outcome of the Battle of Jutland. It was felt that he was too cautious in his dealing with the Germans and should have taken a more aggressive approach. His defenders, however, note the significant risk of losing the fleet — a vital aspect of Britain's wartime defence — as explanation for his calculated restraint. In November , Jellicoe was appointed First Sea Lord and never again took part in operations at sea. He died in and was buried at St Paul's Cathedral. Franz Hipper joined the Imperial German Navy in After holding several commands and serving around the world, he was put in charge of all German scouting forces in Vice Admiral Hipper was an excellent tactician, who commanded effectively during the Battle of the Dogger Bank in As commander of the I Scouting Group of battlecruisers, Hipper played a key role in putting Admiral Scheer's plan into effect at Jutland. Not long after 2pm on 31 May, Hipper and Beatty's battlecruiser forces made contact with each other. Hipper turned south, hoping to draw the British towards the rest of the German fleet. It worked, and Beatty followed him. The two opposing battlecruiser forces soon opened fire on each other. The gunners on Hipper's battlecruisers had the advantage. The British ships were clearly visible against the skyline, whilst the Germans were less distinct targets. The Germans were able to capitalise on this, and achieved a better accuracy and range of fire during the fight between the battlecruisers. The Germans followed and soon met the British Grand Fleet. Invincible exploded and all but 6 of her crew of 1, were lost. At one stage in the battle, Hipper had to transfer to a new flagship, SMS Moltke , as his had sustained too much damage and eventually sank. Under increasing pressure from the Grand Fleet, as night fell the Germans disengaged and turned for home. Hipper's force sustained some damage in the night fighting that occurred as the High Seas Fleet desperately tried to get home intact. Despite this, he and his remaining battlecruisers managed to return to their bases in Germany. Hipper's role at Jutland was judged to have been carried out well, as his battlecruisers decisively won the initial clash with Beatty's force. He retired from the Imperial German Navy a few months later. 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Battle of Jutland | National Records of Scotland A few salvoes were enough to cause her to explode, capsize and rapidly sink, taking with her 1, officers and men. During this phase of the battle Beatty deployed his destroyers, which clashed with German torpedo boats. Beatty's battleships were late in turning away and lucky to escape with non-critical damage, but they continued to strike the chasing German battleships as they raced north. She lost 1, officers and men. Despite this disaster and the poor visibility, Jellicoe handled his overwhelming force of battleships brilliantly. The German dreadnoughts came off worse, and turned away again to the west. As night fell, Jellicoe tried to cut Scheer off from his home ports, but intermittent skirmishes and sightings through the night did not lead to the hoped-for final contact. The German dead amounted to 2,, but British losses were 6,, of whom more than half died on the three battlecruisers that were sunk. The battle affected some communities as badly as the worst land battles of the war. In peacetime most were fishermen and all were seamen in the Royal Naval Reserve who were called up in to man the warships. All but two were married, and they left 13 widows and 33 fatherless children. The loss of 15 sailors on a single day compares with the 38 others from the town who were lost at sea at other times during the war. The analysis in these examples is clear enough, as are its ramifications, but are such trenchant criticisms really deserved? Was the Royal Navy actually as devoid of technological understanding, competent leadership and broader strategic and tactical thinking as these judgements assert? In recent years a good deal of new scholarship has emerged, much of which paints a very different picture of the Royal Navy and its leadership in the run-up to the First World War. Although the history of British naval policy in this period is now a highly contested area, with wide differences of opinion evident in recent analyses of the direction and intent of Admiralty thinking, much of this historiography is nonetheless in agreement about the assiduity, thoughtfulness and realism with which the service and its leaders prepared the ground for war in general and for a naval war against Germany in the North Sea in particular. To begin with, John Beeler and Iain Hamilton have conclusively established—admittedly on very different grounds—that the Royal Navy of the mid- and late Victorian era was far from the reactionary and sleepy instrument of popular caricature. Shawn Grimes, for example, has shown that serious preparations for such a conflict began at the very start of the twentieth century. The institutional focus for this was the creation of the Naval War Staff, a subject that has been analysed in detail by Black. Nowhere was this clearer than in the and manoeuvres, which, as he explains, drove a serious effort to provide Britain with strategic options for the anticipated conflict. Even those who disagree with the substance of the above arguments accept the broader point that the Admiralty was an organisation which sought innovative solutions to the many strategic and tactical problems that it faced. This thesis claims that the Admiralty planned to bring about a quick victory in a war with Germany by collapsing the global economy and so severing the sinews of the German war effort at the very outset. However, as the views of Murray Williamson cited above clearly demonstrate, this convergence of opinion among historians studying the Royal Navy has so far had limited traction in the wider literature. Possibly it has been masked by the intricacy and intensity of the debate over the actual policy adopted by the Admiralty, the tone of which can easily obscure the bigger picture. Alternatively, it could be that, although there is broad agreement on the characterisation of the Navy as a thinking organisation in the decade before the outbreak of the war, broader acceptance of this is slowed by the want of a comprehensive picture of the state of the Navy on the very eve of war. Here questions still remain. How and to what extent had all the changes that had taken place been assimilated? How willing were these people to embrace change and drive forward technical, materiel and tactical improvements? How effective was the Navy in translating technical and tactical innovation into credible strategic options for politicians? Unlike the Army, the General Staff of which appraised military problems at an annual conference, neither the Admiralty nor the Naval War Staff held a regularly scheduled meeting to undertake an equivalent exercise. However, perhaps aware of what the sister service did, in April the Navy timetabled its own ad hoc meeting, at which it was intended that a wide-ranging discussion of such issues should take place. In many respects, this was a logical culmination of the discussions and concerns that had been shaping naval thinking for several years. These had been very revealing but also very expensive, and as a result the decision had been taken that in a less costly, but no less necessary, exercise would be held in the form of a test mobilisation.