The RN would view that the fault would rest with Beatty and Seymour in this case, as leaving signals flying would indicate to any subordinate that the admiral did not intend the order to be executed yet, and as the subordinate would not have all the information to hand, it might be playing part of some greater scheme he knew nothing about. Beatty expected his signals to be obeyed, but despite the disaster at Dogger Bank he had still by far the worst signalling of any admiral at Jutland, and rather like Churchill he was prone to making pointless signals too. It would have taken a very different man to Evan-Thomas to disobey a direct order in action.glenn239 wrote:If E-T loses the 4 best dreadnoughts in the fleet by sailing head-on into the HSF 3rd BS on a signal protocol its his fault, not the flag guy's.
No, it is down to Evan-Thomas that he didnt disobey Beatty's order earlier, but it is the responsibility of Beatty that the signals did not reflect what he wanted to happen. Indeed with his battlecruisers rather badly shot up, he may well have intended the 5th BS to take up the rear of his line, closer to the enemy, I am not aware he ever said Evan-Thomas should have disobeyed his direct orders as displayed by the flag signal Beatty was flying?glenn239 wrote:It was 100%, entirely, unequivocally E-T's responsibility that he placed his dreadnoughts in danger.
If Beatty expected Evan-thomas to take a place at the rear of his line this would have to happen, and it would also make more sense when allowing for how the BCF and 5th BS were expected to take up positions when merging with the GF. At the point the BCF and 5th BS passed each other, Beatty still had an impending direct order flying, and did not signal his intent to execute it, or indeed to let anyone else know his signal yards were damaged, so signalling was going to be imprecise.glenn239 wrote:There was absolutely no excuse - none - for his conduct in failing to break off his advance towards Scheer at the instance Beatty's BC's passed him at full speed on the reciprocal bearing.
The best documented example is Leveson's ships of the 2nd BS 2nd Div that sighted the Seydlitz at close range and even challenged her, but when they recieved the wrong reply, she was allowed to retreat as they thought she was a destroyer due to how low in the water she was. By the time the eror was realised, Seydlitz had vanished. However, opening fire would have given away the position of the fleet, opening it to torpedo attacks, so hindsight is a wonderful thing in this case, it was far less clear at the time.glenn239 wrote:Then, wasn't it E-T that compounded his error by having a BC or two right under his guns that night, and he did nothing?
If you really want to talk of compounding errors, maybe you could remind me what ship it was that had 'forgotten' the night challenge for the RN and needed to ask for it to be signalled to them, only for German ships to also see it, allowing them to get past the destroyer line at night with far more ease than if they had not had this information???