The Germans were fortunate that at the Battle of Dogger Bank, the Seydlitz suffered a hit from a 13.5 inch shell on a turret and nearly suffered the same explosion that destroyed three British battlecruisers at Jutland. They learned from this that it was necessary to have automatically closing flash doors and these were fitted to their ships. (It should be noted this applied to battleships - not only battlecruisers). Hence they had a decided advantage at that time as the British had not had the lesson made clear to them. (Strangely, earlier pre dreadonoughts had this feature but this was changed with the Formidable class).
The main problem with the battlecruisers were that they were not used as intended- Fisher envisaged them as scouts for the battlefleet and they could also be used to hunt down and destroy commerce raiders. This gradually changed- as they were seen to have the weaponry of battleships they came to be used as battle ships. Their speed should have been used to keep them out of the range of the enemies heavy guns.
Aye, I’ve always felt the battlecruisers have been a bit hard done by. Its a bit like me buying a ferrari then moaning because i can’t fit four kids in it.
Continuing the book recommendation theme, Bitter Ocean is a good read if you fancy stepping up to WW2 once you’ve finished Castles of Steel.
Jackie Fisher orchestrated Jellicoe’s rise so that he (Jellico) would assume the position of Admiral of the Fleet at the outbreak of WW I. As Fisher pointed out, he is elevating Jellicoe to ‘Nelsonhood’. At the end of WW I, particularly after the battle of Jutland, Fisher said of Jellicoe, he has all the traits of greatness except for one and that is that he (Jellico) never learned to disobay orders.
I’m not sure where you are getting your ideas and quotes from, but a few points.
I think you may have blurred a few issues. Fisher was known to have said “Any fool can obey orders!”. I don’t know if he included Jellicoe, but in the context of Jutland, I am not sure there were any orders he could have disobeyed. He was in command and in the infancy of radio communications he got no directions. (He also got little information about the whereabouts of the High Seas Fleet but that is a matter more relative to Beatty).
I basically agree about Fisher, but thought I’d throw Cochrane out there for fun. Went to dig up some links on him, came back to post, and see I’d simply failed to notice casdave already suggested him.
The Grand Fleet (main body) was always slightly better trained in gunnery and signals than the detached Battle Cruiser force, commanded by Beatty.
In regards to Fisher, he recognised that the industrial age navy was expensive in both money and manpower, and a lot of the innovative weapon systems (like submarines) he pushed were attempts to address this problem.
He also pushed for detente with the French. The French eventually agreed to guard the Med., allowing Fisher to redeploy British battleships back to the home isles.
Fisher also is credited with (some say “ruthlessly”) scrapping older obsolete designs, instead of allowing them to tie up manpower.
He also pushed for the “distant blockade” strategy, which was less wear and tear on men and ships.
Fisher’s personality, though, was one of those where folks either loved him or hated him, with few fence sitters.
Heh. Rickover had to come up with incentive to get his ideas past Congress: He wanted to show that the Navy could stay relevant in the “Nuclear Age”. Congress sometimes assumed that we needed no weapon systems other than the bomb.
Getting away from the topic but still relevant I guess, I thin k it was Curtis LeMay who argued that there was no need for submarines as his nuclear bomber would boil the sea around them.
