Ingenohls Chance

[Baltasar]

Initially, he didn't have any clue that he was heading towards the main body of the German Navy. He thought that these were the raiders he was supposed to intercept. Moreover, the German forward units had (iirc) two light cruisers with them, which would mean that the British destroyers had something serious to think about.
Combined with the rather poor weather, notoriously bad signalling on all sides and rough seas it would take Warrender some time to realize what he was heading for while Ingenohl could do nothing but assume that he'd encountered capital ships and form up into battle formation. Even a few salvos by the Germans might be enough to knock out a British capital or two.

[JAG13]

The question here is what is the likely outcome were Ingenohl to remain on course and intercept Warrenders small force within the hour. ...and what would be the long term effects?

The usual assumption I've seen is Warrenders ships are caught and massacred, with perhaps a few German cruisers or dreadnoughts severely damaged.

The question is, how long would it take Warrender to realise that he was massively outnumbered, and how long after that would it take him to make the correct decision to withdraw?

It was dark but close to dawn and they were already within theoretical gun range, have them close and they wont even have a chance to work up to top speed.

The problem in the Royal Navy at this time was the aftermath of Admiral Troubridge being court-martialled for not engaging the German battlecruiser Goeben and light cruiser Breslau with his 4 armoured cruisers. This despite the fact Goeben and Breslau were faster than the British ships, and Goeben's 11" guns greatly outranged the British armoured cruiser's 9.2" guns. This court martial would have made both Warrender and Beatty hesitate for several vital minutes before turning away even from an obviously stronger enemy force.

Agree.

On the other hand, the British battleship squadron was 2-3 knots faster than the German battle fleet, because the latter included pre-dreadnaught battleships, which couldn't do more than 18 knots in formation. von Ingenhohl was IMO extremely unlikely to allow his 13 dreadnoughts to get very far separated from the 8 pre-dreadnoughts, even at the point of victory - certainly not so far as to be out of sight. So provided Warrender didn't hesitate too long before turning away, he would have had a chance to flee out of range.

Once it is clear it is just those six (it was clear weatehr at first), a general chase is in order and Warrender's sjips are not faster than the Kaisers.

Still, I'd say it was quite likely that this would have been a great victory for the Germans, though probably not a clean sweep. I'd guess about half of the British ships would have been sunk, and most of the rest damaged, with the Germans probably suffering damage to a third of their major warships but not losing any.

The KM had its DDs with it, those would overtake and by torpedo or forcing the BBs to maneuver almost guarantee anihilation.

[Carl Schwamberger]

luv late post bumps

[Baltasar]

Kinda odd. I read that weather conditions were bad to start with.

[JAG13]

Kinda odd. I read that weather conditions were bad to start with.

That is the North Sea for you, there was a spell of good weather for a few hours until mid-morning, then it all went to hell again allowing Hipper to get past the RN.

AFAIK.

I found this interesting:

http://firedirectioncenter.blogspot.com ... -bank.html

Mighty V-155!

[Baltasar]

Hipper did send home most of his escorts because of the bad weather in the morning already. With the North Sea experience these commanders should've had, I wonder why he did so if he could expect good weather later on?

[JAG13]

Hipper did send home most of his escorts because of the bad weather in the morning already. With the North Sea experience these commanders should've had, I wonder why he did so if he could expect good weather later on?

He couldnt expect good weather in december, it just happened, and for just a few hours and about 200Km from where Hipper was. Altough "not bad weather" would have been a better description.

[Carl Schwamberger]

What was Ingenohles character, he was not the sort to become nervous and draw the wrong conclusion when first sighting Warrenders fleet?

[Baltasar]

That's hard to decribe. From what I read, he got pressed by the Kaiser himself not to lose the fleet. Having that in mind, I believe he was overly cautious* during this time. May be he didn't have much confidence in the secretness of German wireless, that would explain why he didn't notify Hipper that he was sailing home when he did, but I don't have any clue whether this might've been the case. I have my doubts that the higher echelon of any branch in the German military was much aware of the difficulties of encryption or signal spotting.

*The Grand Fleet couldn't have been there if they had sailed out a few hours after the HSF. But the battle of the Helgoland Blight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_ ... %281914%29) might have affected his calculations.

[Carl Schwamberger]

A lot of ambigious information here. A tough call for both Ingenohl & Warender with crap visibility and thin information on the enemy.

[Baltasar]

Crap visibility being far from unusual... :-/