Product Description

Fills an important gap in the understanding of this important action Best ever charting of the battle by maps and diagrams Extensive appendices, including a summary of the more important German wireless messages

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #601317 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

About the Author
V.E.Tarrant, an ex-Navy man, has achieved an international reputation for the quality of his research and the excellence of his narrative writing. Now retired, he lives in Cardiff and is beginning a new career as a novelist.

Customer Reviews

"Something Wrong with Our Bloody Ships Today, Chatfield!"
Admiral Beatty's words in the middle of this great battle sum up its enduring interest.

To read a book written rather more from the German standpoint than the British, is to broaden one's understanding of this first and last dreadnought battle, before submarines and aircraft carriers changed sea warfare for ever.

Well, what was wrong with Britain's ships in 1916?

First the Germans had a better range finder, which is why Beatty's ships mysteriously failed to open fire when they had the advantage as the two battlecruiser fleets closed on each other at the opening of the battle. Once firing began, the German fleet was more accurate, and though in a minority ship-for-ship, scored far more hits.

Second, the German ships, as Tarrant reveals, were built with defence in mind - they could take more punishment.

Third, as revealed in a recent C4 film, British gunnery practice was geared to speed rather than safety. Ammunition, and in particular cordite, was stacked all over the place, and once hit, a British ship was likely to disappear in a huge blinding explosion.

Fourth, the British ships stood out in the sunset, the Germans, to the east, were more difficult to spot, and had the advantage of receding into the fading light.

In end, it was psychology that got the British off a worse battering: the Kaiser needed his fleet kept 'in being'. Hipper and Scheer had planned for a battle against part of the British fleet, hoping to defeat it 'in detail' and narrow the odds, before the next round.

What they got was the whole Grand Fleet; not what they bargained for.

Though defeated on hit count, casualty count, and sinkings, the British were still in charge of the North Sea on June 2nd 1916, and the German fleet was still in harbour, where it would stay until 11 November 1918.

There would be starvation in Germany in the winter of 1916. The slow, but steady, collapse of the German home front was in no small measure due to the strategic failure of the High Seas Fleet at Jutland.

This book is well written: detail and the bigger picture are both in focus. You won't want to put it down!

Essential reading for anyone interested in this battle.
If detail is what you are after, this book will provide most of your needs. Written mainly from a British perspective, this much anticipated but ultimately anticlimactic battle is followed from conception to it's aftermath. All of the ships, the main players, the events, the damage and the sinkings are covered in great detail. However, don't be fooled into thinking that this is a stodgy text book. The narrative is well written and the maps and illustrations are helpful. After a while you too will feel the frustration of Admiral Beattie as his ships start blowing up due to bad design, and the German Fleet escapes in the murk.

Incompetent Beatty
This book is incorrect when regarding British ship design, as I can explain. Under direct orders from Beatty all battlecruisers in his squadron were to have a high rate of fire. To achieve this, doors and hatches that should have been closed during action were left open to enable rapid movement of munitions with Beatty's full knowledge. Therefore when a shell struck a British ship the explosion flashed down the magazines, sinking three ships and causing the deaths of 6000 sailers. Not a design fault at all, just incompetent Beatty. He was resposible for their deaths, he blamed the ships yet unless he was completely stupid he must have known his orders were at fault.
The Royal Navy had the best ships of any nation during WW1. The battlecruisers in Beattys' squadron had bigger guns with computer controlled gun laying that could sink the German battlecruisers before their guns came in range, but Beatty thought he new better than the ship designers and stratagists by closing the range and shooting as fast as he could without the help of the computers. All he had to do was follow the book of instructions like the Germans did and it would have been Germany crying for her lost sons.
Jellicoe did'nt lose a ship, he had managed to get the Grand fleet into action with the High Seas Fleet and was punishing them. They turned through 180 degrees in the smoke(a manuvure they had practised) and ran home. Poor old Jellicoe gets removed later while incompetent Beatty gets promoted in his place!