The Myth of Winner —— A Brief Analysis of the Patrol Battle in Jutland Naval Battle from the German Perspective

On the morning of June 19 1, 2006, when the main force of the high seas fleet sailed into Yade Bay, Schell opened champagne on the flagship. Of course, he has reason to celebrate. The Germans have proved that they can get the upper hand in the confrontation with the Royal Navy, and achieved more than expected results. On the same day, when the big fleet began to return on the morning of June 1, disappointment enveloped the whole fleet, and their dream confrontation took place, but Jutland did not become another Trafalgar. Jericho and Betty were so depressed that they lost three battle cruiser ships. Fisher was furious when he saw the news report: "They failed me. I have prepared for this day for 30 years, but they have failed me! " Admiral Schell, Admiral Jericho, the first stage of the naval battle, from May 3 1, 15: 48 to 16: 54, the two sides patrolled and fought, and the royal navy was beaten cleanly, 2-0. After the naval battle, Jericho's own evaluation of this stage was restrained at the first time, but it was still severe: "The fact that the patrol stage is not satisfactory is that when five German patrol boats are facing six British patrol boats, and we get long-range support from four" Queen Elizabeth "class battleships 20 minutes after firing, Germany can still sink the" Queen Mary "and" Tireless "... Mary. However, just after the Jutland naval battle, the British patrol was regarded as the most threatening force in the Royal Navy in the Jutland Naval Battle Tactics Lesson 19 16 released by the German High Seas Fleet and Reconnaissance Detachment in August. What's interesting about this report? Due to the inadequate protection at the top of the turret and irregular operation, British patrols suffered heavy losses. First of all, this battle is analyzed. In the nearly one-hour patrol, although the British army has advantages in strength and range, the artillery performance is extremely poor, and the hit ratio of the British and German patrols is only 1 1: 42. Obviously, there are many reasons for the poor performance of artillery. Hippel, commander of the reconnaissance unit, believes that the British army may not take advantage of the range advantage because of visibility problems or uneven formation, and the artillery level is obviously lower than that of the German army. Admiral hippel compared the maximum patrol range of both sides. In Britain, four ships equipped with 13.5 inch (343 mm) main guns can patrol up to 23,500 yards, and the "New Zealand" and "tireless" ranges equipped with 12 inch (305 mm) main guns at the tail are18,500 yards. In Germany, except for the Von DeThann, which has a range of 22,400 yards, the other four patrol ships have a range of about 20,000 yards, which means that the British have an advantage in range. However, at 15: 48 on the same day, hippel's patrol took the lead in firing at 16000 yards. It took the lion 30 seconds to start firing. Moreover, due to the shooting angle problem, the tiger and lion only used the front A and B turrets in the previous rounds of volley. Hippel thought it was good for his own side, which gave him a chance to wait for the British to enter the effective range before firing. Germany's war patrol Britain's war patrol throughout the war, the visibility of Germany has been good. Generally speaking, Betty is in the west and hippel is in the east. From hippel's point of view, the background of Betty's patrol is the clear sky on the west side of the battlefield, so the outline of Betty's ship is very clear, and the Germans can better check and shoot. Because the sky to the east of the battlefield is covered with dark gray clouds and accompanied by horizontal mist, Betty's shooting conditions are not as good as her opponents. An officer on the "Lion" bridge recalled: "At that time, visibility was extremely unreliable. This kind of weather is very typical in Beihai in summer. The sea is filled with different degrees of fog, and the humidity is so high that even the sun can't penetrate. Unfortunately, the western horizon is very clear. "Visible poor visibility has a great influence on the British army. In the post-war reports of several German war patrol captains, it is also speculated that the poor shooting performance and slow firing rate of the British army may be affected by visibility. In addition, the British shooting was also affected by the smoke from their own ships. At that time, the wind was northwest, and the Betty patrol was diagonally arranged in the northwest-southeast direction. The smoke discharged from it was blown to the sea between the two fleets by the wind, which affected its sight. On the contrary, the smoke on hippel's boat was blown away faster by the wind, which did not hinder his shooting. There are also serious problems in the distribution of shooting targets in battle cruiser Tiger British Army. 15: 45, Betty assigned the targets of all the ships: except the Lion and the Royal Princess, which were at the front of the line, and the lighted Luzov, all the other ships fired at the remaining ships on the other front. However, the' Queen Mary' did not receive this order, so she shot at the third warship in front of the other side (the' Cedritz') as usual. " Tiger didn't receive this order, so the target of this ship is Mao Qi, which is the fourth ship in the opponent's array. "New Zealand" and "tireless" really carried out Betty's orders correctly. In this way, for nearly 10 minutes, no British patrol fired at the German patrol "Devlinger", which was able to shoot without interference. What's more, Betty's shooting skills are not high. Jericho privately commented after the war: "According to the training record of shooting skills after the war, it is obvious that most of our shooting skills are very low. "On the one hand, as the busiest high-speed combat force after the war, the war patrol is not as good as the battleship in the big fleet in shooting training; On the other hand, the Firth of Forsyth, where the patrol is stationed, is relatively narrow, so it is impossible to conduct normal shooting training. All departments of the patrol need to take turns to go to Scarpa Bay where the big fleet is stationed for shooting training. Behind the big fleet moored in Scarpa Bay is the tactical analysis of the British patrol unit. Scheer, commander of the high seas fleet, believes that the tactical intention of the British army is obviously to cut off the German retreat and force the German army to engage with its dominant main force and defeat it. The British patrol can suppress the German patrol through the advantages of speed, strength and range, and keep in touch with the Germans to achieve the effect of forced reconnaissance. In fact, the British avant-garde fleet also found the main force of Schell. In this way, the Germans will be in a dilemma. If the avant-garde fleet fights alone, it is obviously not good for the Germans. If it retreats and joins the main force, then the British avant-garde fleet can flank one end of the German front at high speed, forcing it to change its course, thus limiting the movement of the Germans. On her return to Hong Kong, the Vondetan was shot at the waterline. In this regard, Scheer pointed out that under the premise that the Germans need to send reconnaissance before the war patrol, they should fight as close as possible to their main force and cut off the enemy's retreat. At the same time, the fastest battleship detachment from the main fleet should be deployed for support. Since the German avant-garde fleet could not continue its reconnaissance mission after fighting with the British army, the next reconnaissance mission was handed over to the airship. However, this has created an irreconcilable contradiction. On the one hand, the Germans hope that the weather conditions will be good and they can use airships to continue reconnaissance when their inferior avant-garde fleet is engaged in battle; The Germans, on the other hand, hope that the lower the visibility, the better, so that their own patrols can advance firepower at a disadvantage in range. German Battleship As can be seen from the words of hippel and Schell, the German army has no good solution to the advantages of the British avant-garde fleet in terms of strength, speed and voyage. There are a lot of accidental factors in Jutland's war patrol dialogue, and the German avant-garde fleet is still not sure to defeat the British avant-garde fleet in the next possible battle. The Jutland naval battle and the light cruiser regensburg proved the importance of speed, and the great strategic advantage brought by the high-speed patrol affected the direction of the naval battle. Schell himself admits that a low-speed fleet can't deal with a high-speed fleet with patrols. For battleships, high speed also has high tactical value. Even if the speed difference between the "Queen Elizabeth" class as a fast battleship and the battle line is only 5-6 knots, this speed advantage is not enough to make them a powerful fast flank force, that is to say, their speed is wasted in the battleship, but as a fast detachment, they can't keep up with the battle patrol, and they don't have an advantage in speed when facing the enemy's fast detachment. The Queen-class battleships are still like this, and other battleships in the big fleet are almost useless compared with the slight advantage of the German 1-2 section. No matter how well-trained the big fleet was, no matter how carefully Jericho planned to seize the T-prefix twice, Schell's two 180 steering maneuvers in the naval battle made the Trafalgar-style battle that the Royal Navy dreamed of come to nothing. The battleship Nelson, Queen Elizabeth, defeated the French-Spanish combined fleet in the naval battle of Trafalgar. We can think that the experience of Jutland naval battle has promoted the integration of two kinds of battleships and patrol ships in the future. From Hood to Iowa, with the progress of shipbuilding technology and the importance attached by navies of various countries to speed, high-speed battleships have finally entered the historical stage and become the ultimate product of the development of battleships. At this time, look back at Admiral Fisher's point of view at the meeting of 1905: "It is not impossible for armored cruisers to use anything they have; In fact, they are fast warships. These new armored cruisers (that is, war patrols) are actually high-speed battleships. "This is not a charm. Admiral Fisher Hood, battleship Iowa-class battleship in New Jersey, reference materials: large fleet: warship design and development1906-1922 D.K. Brown British battleship 190 6- 1946 Norman Friedman's German perspective on the Battle of Jutland Werner. Zhang Yuxiang has written two articles about war patrol before: embarrassing fragile killer? A Deep-rooted Misunderstanding of Battleship: Speed Overriding —— A Brief Analysis of Battleship in Jutland Sea Battle