Talk:Battle of Jutland/Archive 1

Seems to be a lot of British POV. the Kaiserliche marine won that battle. To put tactical or strategic victory seems to me a lot of 'we're going to mask a little'... ___

I changed the result from "Germany victory" to "German tactical victory; British strategic victory." I believe this is what it was before, and this is obviously a more accurate and more NPOV than to state that Jutland was a German victory.
 * Good - let's hope it stays that way! Viv Hamilton 09:58, 2 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Breyer "Battleships and Battlecruisers 1905-1970" p69


 * "Jellicoe would have been a poor admiral and fleet commander if he had frivolously foregone the glory of a new British victory. But any desire of this kind had to be subordinated to the clearly defined instructions from the Admiralty who, as a result of a correct assessment of the strategic position, were convinced that Germany would be defeated without a British naval victory." Therefore Jellicoe's orders were not to defeat the HSF, but to ensure that the GF survived. The German strategists had misread the strategic situation, and had not fully appreciated that the Atlantic was Britain's lifeline, the North Sea was a mere sideshow. So long as the HSF was bottled up in the North Sea, it could not significantly affect the trans-Atlantic trade.


 * Therefore it is definitely, in Breyer's eyes, a British strategic success in that the result fell in line with the desired outcome. Breyer isn't exactly rabidly pro-UK. Greglocock 12:14, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

---

The text of this article seems to be solidly within the British point of view - no German naval officers are named, for example. It would be interesting to find out how the German sailors involved undertook the battle. - user:Montrealais

This article has been defaced.

It seems to me that the orders of battle should be moved to a seperate list due to the huge number of ships involved in this battle. Just a thought. Gentgeen 09:54, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * Good idea. What i said on Cleanup (excessively for the location) was
 * Battle of Jutland Thorough, 2800 word article, w/ 58 word intro. I want to know if Jellico was considered a hero, but the outcome is summarized as " After an inconclusive encounter both sides claimed victory." How about an Overview section after ToC, say several hundred words (including, if i grasp correctly, "kept the German fleet from affecting the outcome of the war" and the Churchill quote abt the "over-cautious" admiral being the only one who could have lost the war in an hour or an afternoon or whatever. --Jerzy
 * but those 2800-and-some words are just the running text, and the orders of battle are additional. --Jerzy 12:10, 2004 Feb 7 (UTC)


 * There's no value to the reader in separating the OB - it's at the end, nothing "hidden" by being after it. It does need tweaking; for instance, we don't need detailed stats for each capital ship, that's why we have links to ship articles, and the minor ships can be comma-separated lists of names after each division. Stan 13:44, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * No value to the users who matter, but still, take pity on those of us still on dial-up. Most readers of the article will not even glance at OB, important tho it is to full coverage, but have to sit thru its loading time. --Jerzy 21:31, 2004 Feb 7 (UTC)

It doesn't seem an unreasonable request to me, and the effort to click on Battle of Jutland (order of battle) doesn't seem an undue effort for people who want to study it. Would it cause offense if I split it this way?Dandrake 00:35, Feb 22, 2004 (UTC)


 * I can live with it. Battle of Jutland, order of battle is a little better I think, the "" misleadingly suggests a disambiguator. Jutland order of battle is also sufficiently clear, less wordy, and reads better. Stan 01:19, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I'm glad to see that this article is the object of some active interest. Does anyone know that it's on Featured Articles, but is about to lose that status? I'm the guilty party who raised an objection to its retention; read about it at Featured article candidates/Archived nominations/Index/June 2003 to January 2004. Since no one else has done anything, I'm now trying to copy edit the article to the point that I can remove my objection. Everyone else is welcome to join, especially those who know more about naval history than I do.

By the way, here's what happened: it got on the FA list back when there was no particular procedure to put things there. After a procedure was adopted, everything that was already on the list came up for review; many articles were challenged on various grounds. There seems to have been a flaw in this process: old articles were never flagged so that people seeing them would know that they were Featured, or that they were under challenge. Dandrake 21:27, Feb 20, 2004 (UTC)

Trying to clarify the text for people who aren't sure what crossing the T is, or (like me) have never heard of the Jade [Estuary]. Any interested parties please keep an eye on my historical accuracy, as well as whether I'm mangling the prose. Dandrake 00:01, Feb 21, 2004 (UTC)

Query:was it our bloody ships or our bloody battlecruisers with which something was wrong that day? I'd always heard the latter version. Dandrake 00:32, Feb 21, 2004 (UTC)
 * "Ships" in all the quotes I've heard" Arwel 00:37, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I've tried to clarify both the paragraph on Jellicoe's decision to deploy in line astern and the one on why the ships blew up. I don't think I've messed up the sense. In the latter, I changed references to naval "culture" into "doctrine", which makes it more a formal decision than an unexamined assumption; I submit this to review by people who know the history better. Dandrake 21:07, Feb 21, 2004 (UTC)

I wouldn't bother commenting, but this page is up for Featured Article status. I think this page has a definite POV toward paying more attention to the British side. I deleted one case where the text said "unfortunately", but there are many more similar wordings. Problems for the British are "worrying", and the "overview" of the battle focuses entirely on one British man. I will point out or fix more things I find POV later, but this is more of a statement about the sum total of the article than specific statements. DanKeshet 19:44, Feb 22, 2004 (UTC)


 * Well, it was worrying to him! (Reminiscent of how NPOV it is to report on the fact that some people believe in [fill in favorite conspiracy theory or whatever].) But you're right, of course. Was anything at all going on in the minds of the German commanders? We really need someone who has read about it in German, since this sort of material is probably a bit scarce in English. Dandrake 20:13, Feb 22, 2004 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately I've not been able to find anything written from the German POV in English, and a search of Amazon.de for "Reinhard Scheer" and "Franz von Hipper" doesn't show anything either, so I suppose they didn't write any memoirs, surprisingly, or more likely they're not in print. -- Arwel 19:28, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Scheer's book, published in 1920, was Germany's High Seas Fleet in the World War; available online at . Gdr 16:47, 2004 Oct 20 (UTC)

As the article stands now, it seems to imply that the 2003 diving expedition revealed the reasons for the explosions of so many British cruisers. But the reasons were already known decades ago, the diving expedition merely confirmed them. Perhaps the article should be reworded to make this clear?

Also, the section on British naval intelligence could be slightly expanded: While Room 40 did know that the Hochseeflotte was out of the barn, a mistaken discussion with a naval officers lead the Admiralty to believe that the Scheer's battle fleet was _not_ moving, and there was merely a large cruiser operation underway. (The success of Room 40 was marred by the fact that the Admiralty constantly managed to misunderstand, misinterpet and just plain ignore a lot of data coming out of there)

Naval battles of The First World War by Geoffrey Bennett (published in -68, IIRC) both mentions the listed reasons for why the British ships had a tendency to explode, as well as discusses the failures of the Admiralty staf to properly exploit the data received from Room 40. User:GNiko 2005 Aug 14

Featured article status again?
Could this be a featured article again? I think it could, but it needs Gdr 15:30, 2004 Oct 20 (UTC)
 * Some more from the German perspective
 * Some quotes from eye-witness accounts
 * To be more specific about the Jellicoe controversy: who actually attacked him and in what words?
 * A general map of the North Sea showing fleet movements from 30 May to 1 June
 * More about the night action
 * A snappier lead section
 * Last time it was proposed, it was opposed on the grounds of too little from the German perspective, which is why I was asking if anyone knew of any books from the German POV. It doesn't appear that there are any. -- Arwel 16:44, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * See the External links and References section of the article. Gdr 16:47, 2004 Oct 20 (UTC)
 * It's looking very nice! :) -- Arwel 17:31, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

German plan prompted by Verdun?
I cut the following sentence from the article:


 * In 1916 the failure at the Battle of Verdun and the increasing effectiveness of the economic blockade led the German government to try to break (or at the least to weaken) the control of the Royal Navy.

Is this true? Scheer's memoirs contain no mention of Verdun or any particular event as a trigger for the operation that led to Jutland. He views it as following from his general strategy. So I replaced this sentence with a quote from him. If someone can provide evidence that Verdun or the blockade affected the timing of Jutland, then we could put this back. Gdr 20:42, 2004 Oct 22 (UTC)

A note from one of the article's original contributors
Hi All, I decided to check this article again almost exactly a year after I first wrote the heart of the battle description. It didn't occur to me that it would've been viewed and edited, let alone discussed, to the extent that it has. But I guess I shouldn't really be surprised, given how Jutland has always been a favorite among military history experts and amateur buffs. In case you didn't know, as early as 1930 one prominent naval historian commented on Jutland: "Never has a single naval engagement spilt so much ink." Well, the oceans of ink have only continued to flow since then, and now in the Internet age, it appears this enthusiasm is carrying over to cyberspace.

On the issue of sources: it's true they're Anglo-centric. Then again, so is most of the war history as we read it in the West, given that the Germans lost both world wars. However, I'm pretty sure that either Scheer or Hipper, if not both, did write memoirs, and there's at least one biography of Hipper that I know of. The problem is that translations to English aren't readily available, though I admit I haven't looked around in quite a while.

Overall, I'd say the reason Jutland's so hotly discussed for such an inconclusive battle is how much potential it had that wasn't fulfilled, as the main engagement was so wickedly brief. Never before or since have so many capital ships been pitted against each other all at once - if my own calculations are correct, nearly 1 of every 4 battleships and battlecruisers ever built in the dreadnought era (1906-1946) were present at Jutland. The battle was so immensely complex as is, yet it could've been so much more.


 * A translation of Scheer's memoirs is available on the web; see the External links section. Is there in fact much bias remaining in the article? (The German commanders are named; their strategy and plans are discussed, backed up by a quote from Scheer; their movements are given and justified. The account of the battle agrees with eye-witness German accounts. The external links and references have accounts from both sides.) The only place I can see where there might be bias is in the extensive discussion of British reaction in section 4 and little on the German reaction. Gdr 20:54, 2004 Oct 26 (UTC)


 * Surely the reason that all writing is so inconclusive, is that the battle was inconclusive. Two fleets, with vastly different objectives, met in circumstances where the technology and strategy of the times was immature, met in poor visibility, stumbled around, and lost each other, mainly in fear of torpedo attacks that never happened. Massive equipment failures on one side (British AP shells, exploding charges on BCs) meant that both sides drew the wrong conclusions for many years. As a vague question, does anyone deny that Campbell's acccount is fair? Greglocock 12:03, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Battlebox
There appear to be two different Battleboxes in use for "Naval Campaign of World War I", e.g. that used in the Falklands article and the one in this one. Is anyone aware of a sensible reason for this? Grant65 (Talk) 10:33, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)


 * The Battle of the Falkland Islands was using an old battlebox design, made before the introduction of templates. (Template:Infobox Battles is a templatized version of the same design). Template:Battlebox is a new design, using templates and having a campaign. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Battles/archive0002 for the discussion that led to the new design (indeed, the discussion was prompted by this very article). You are welcome to update articles using the old design when you find them. Gdr 13:24, 2005 Apr 4 (UTC)

Battlecruisers
This doesnt seem right to me:

"They were intended to be faster than battleships, with superior fire control, and able to pound enemy battleships at ranges at which the enemy could not reply"

As far as I know battlecruisers were never designed to fight battleships, they were to fight the cruisers of the scouting forces and were armored only against cruiser-sized guns (at least the british battlecruisers).

They were supposed to be protected against the heavy battleship-guns by their ability to outrun them. Of course that concept ran into trouble once the battlecruiser faced a battlecruiser, a scenario the british apparently forgot when designing their battlecruisers (as no other navy had them at the time).

Nevfennas 21:11, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Good catch! -- Arwel 21:33, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The battlecruisers were designed to engage in combat with armored cruisers. They were successful in doing so at the Battle of the Falklands, but the British battlecruisers were massacred at Jutland by German battlecruisers and battleships. They probably would've survived the battle had the crews not removed doors that prevented flash fires in the magazines. -Ben

British targeting in the opening phase
''Instead of engaging in a line, one British ship engaged with one German, there was a mistake on the British part. Derfflinger was left unengaged and free to fire without disruption while Lützow drew fire from two battlecruisers.''

This sounds like a confusion with the Battle_of_Dogger_Bank, where such a mistake did indeed happen. At Jutland 6 British Battlecruisers faced 5 German Battlecruisers, thats why the leading British ships doubled up on Lützow. I will correct that if nobody protests. Nevfennas 07:28, 28 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Nevfennas, you are mistaken. See this link for a diagram and description of why Derfflinger was left unfired upon. http://www.worldwar1.co.uk/jutland2.htm


 * The books about the battle I've read all say the same thing. See the problem was the captains of Queen Mary and Tiger were supposed to fire on their opposites starting from the back of the lines, instead they counted from the front.


 * Hussian 04:33, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

According to the diagram it was Moltke not Lützow that received extra fire as a result of that mistake. It should be clarified that two German Battlecruisers received double fire.

Von Hipper
User:Kosebamse changed every instance of "Hipper" to "von Hipper", with the edit comment ""von" is an integral part of German names and should not be left out". This would be more convincing if (a) the German article on this battle didn't use "Hipper" freely and repeatedly, and (b) the German cruiser Admiral Hipper were named Admiral Von Hipper. So I reverted. Gdr 17:55:10, 2005-08-12 (UTC)
 * Being German, I can assure you that von is indeed an integral part of a German surname and it is incorrect (and in personal contact, rude) to call someone "Hipper" when the name is "von Hipper". I am not specifically knowledgeable in in the details of this article, but if that officer's name was indeed "von Hipper" then both instances that you cite are incorrect in their usage of the name. Kosebamse 19:26, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't think your rule about "von" can be true in all cases. In the German Wikipedia, plain "Hipper" is used in Gefecht auf der Doggerbank and Skagerrakschlacht. Another example is Otto von Bismarck, almost always referred to as plain "Bismarck". On the other hand Werner von Braun is always "von Braun", never just "Braun"; and you can see that it is the same in the English article Werner von Braun.

Can you give a reference for the rule about "von"? Gdr 20:27:22, 2005-08-12 (UTC)


 * I happen to know it for a fact, but would have to search to find it codified. Give me some time and I'll try to find an online reference.
 * The rule as such is quite simple: nobility should be referred to with their title, and for a German named "von X" (which would be roughly equivalent to "Baron X" elsewhere) the correct way would be to speak of "von X" in an encyclopedic article, and of "Herr von X" in a personal or formal setting. Addressing Mr. von X as "Herr X" in a personal communication would be outright rude. The only formal exception I can think of would be that in a circle made up exclusively of noblemen/-women one might address someone else without expressly including the title (but even there, Count Y might prefer to be addressed as "Count Y" by Mr von X).
 * In practice however, things look different. Firstly, in egalitarian societies, most people (including Wikipedians) may not be familiar with these seemingly obsolete forms or may deliberately choose to ignore them. Secondly, the titles of nobility of highly popular figures such as Bismarck (who was, by the way, promoted to Graf, then Fürst, then Herzog) are often ignored for the sake of simplicity, especially in casual parlance and journalism. Kosebamse 21:25, 12 August 2005 (UTC)


 * http://www.ledebur.de/startframe.htm
 * Here is page (in german, sorry) that deals with the use of "von". The problem is (among other things) that there are two "von":One is the "Adelprädikat" (nobility stub?) used by nobility, this von may be shortened in offical documents to "v." as it is part of a title.
 * The other "von" does not belong to nobility, it came from adding ones origin to the surname. So the nobleman Otto Fürst von Bismarck (Otto Prince of Bismarck) could leave it away, the mere citizen Werner von Braun could not.(technically at least, in spoken language conveniance often overruled the law).
 * Franz von Hipper himself however was not part of the nobility, until he was knighted for his actions at Jutland and became Franz Ritter von Hipper (Scheer was offered the same but declined, so at least Admiral Scheer should have been named Admiral von Scheer) 85.176.64.26 20:59, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Correction: Scheer never was a "von" Scheer, he was born simply as Reinhard Scheer and died as such. Sorry for the mistake 85.176.94.58 07:53, 13 August 2005 (UTC)


 * If Hipper was indeed a non-noble "von" who was later nobilitated, then it would probably be correct to refer to him using the name that he bore at the time of his death. Kosebamse 21:33, 12 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Hipper, as a bavarian national (the Empire was de jure a confederation of serveral monarchies under the Emperor) was awarded the military cross of the Max-Josef Order. This order goes along with the title "Ritter von". It was comparable to the british KBE and was NOT hereditary. So Hipper's children (if he had any) were just plain "Hipper" again. I happen to know this because a relative of mine is a collector of this award. This order was the bavarian equivalent of the Pour le Merite, and was awarded generally under the same circumstances for bavarians as a Prussian for Pour le Merite (but the latter could also be awarded to non-Prussians). While the pour le Merite was the higher reputed award (as prussia was the leading state of the Empire), it did NOT go along with a noble title.


 * Generally german nobility is divided into old (medieval), middle (before 1871) and newer (considered not noble at all by the older ones;)). Most "von" bearers today are the latter, their ancestors being awarded the title of Reichsfreiherr during the empire, which was the lowest hereditary form of nobility. Use of it was about as profligate as KBE, but in contrary to KBE it IS hereditary. But after 1920 noble titles have no importance other than being namesJCRitter.

I see that the English Wikipedia has an article at von. If I understand the above correctly Franz von Hipper could still be referred to as "Hipper" in June 1916, but after his enoblement it was obligatory to call him "von Hipper". So this article, and the one at the German Wikipedia, are OK. Gdr 21:53:08, 2005-08-12 (UTC)


 * Scheer normally is not written with a von in german sources at all, maybe he was created after Skagerrak by the emperor. I have my doubts wether he ever was created noble or not. Seems to be a "von Paulus" chase. Here's a picture of his grave in Weimar: http://www.100megsfree2.com/jjscherr/scherr/images/ScheerTombstone.jpg. Generally, as discussed above, famous germans are normally referred to with just their names. Nobody needs to remind anyone of Bismarck's status while a Meier is something different than a von Meier,). An example was that in Austria, the "von" has been abolished in 1919, and the only ones affected were the small and unknown nobles for whom it was their source of pride and status. A Habsburg, Starhemberg or Eszterhazy would still be recognized.
 * "Admiral Reinhard Scheer" JCRitter

Since Franz Hipper was knighted only AFTER the battle, the debate ist rather moot. While serving at Jutland, he was plain and simple Franz Hipper. Cosal 04:17, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

LinkFix Dump

 * See also: User:Ambush Commander/LinkFix dump

Added here for posterity, it's pretty small, so I'm going to take a crack at it myself.

LinkFix dump for "Battle of Jutland", no edits made:

Flags % Flag Searchlights % Searchlight Flag signals ! Disambiguation Page HMS Southampton ! Disambiguation Page Light Cruiser % Light cruiser Armoured cruiser % Armored cruiser Jackie Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher % John Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher Grand Fleet % British Grand Fleet

Finish what was started a bit back. &mdash; Ambush Commander (Talk) 02:49, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
 * Done. &mdash; Ambush Commander (Talk) 02:56, August 14, 2005 (UTC)

The Beatty Controversy
Something doesn't seem correct:
 * "Most of the British losses in tonnage occurred in Beatty's squadron. The three capital ships the British lost that day were all under the command of Beatty."

This is confusing considering that according to the "Losses" section, the only ships lost in Beatty's Battle Cruiser Fleet were Queen Mary (27000t), Indefatigable(18500t), Nestor (1000t), Nomad (1000t) and Turbulent (1000t), adding up to roughly 48,500 tonnes. Of the 111,000 total tonnes lost by the British, this appears not to be "most" of it. Furthermore, the Order of battle at Jutland, clearly states that the 3rd Battle Cruiser Squadron under R. Adm. Hood was temporarily attached to Adm. Jellicoe's Grand Fleet. Thus his flagship, the Invincible, was not subject to Beatty's command, and its loss cannot be blamed on him. Therefore the statement "The three capital ships the British lost that day were all under the command of Beatty." is either an ambiguous statement or incorrect. Roger 21:37, 20 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Jellicoe ordered Hood's 3BCS forward to join Beatty, and it was under Beatty's command, in line ahead of 1 and 2 BCS when it encountered Lützow and Derfflinger at about 18:20. Gdr 11:56, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

"A battlecruiser in a slugging match against a dreadnought battleship was at a decisive disadvantage." This statement is out of place! Beatty engaged German battlecruisers, not dreadnoughts. That action was well within tactical doctrin. The statement creates the false impression of Beatty deliberatly engaging the German dreadnoughts and should be removed. 213.191.70.226 12:58, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

The British battlecruisers lost were, as far as I know, all sunk by German battlecruisers, not by battleships. So the criticism of Beatty that he fought a superior enemy seems rather misplaced.Cosal 03:43, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

11 inch gun
All sources I know refer to the German 11 inch gun as a 280 milimeter weapon (more common 28 cm). I've never heard of 279 mm, unlike the 381mm for 15 inch guns. Nevertheless the 11 inches are referred to as 279mm in this article. Is there a source for this or has someone simply calculated the conversion and rounded it to 279? 213.191.70.226 10:31, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Yep, 280 mm is the correct one. Darkone 23:40, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Skagerrakschlacht
Perhaps it should be mentioned at some point that in German, the Battle of Jutland is referred to almost exclusively as the Skagerrakschlacht. The German edition of the article touches upon this. Incidentally, Jutland is spelled Jütland (not Jütlan) in German. (Roger2dc 10:01, 18 January 2006 (UTC))
 * I've changed the introduction back to more or less how it was before Neutrality's edits on 19 December, since it's never known as the "Battle of the Skaggerak" in English, either. -- Arwel (talk) 13:02, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Largest naval battle ever
Since this naval battle is still the largest in the history of men I added it in the intro.
 * And since it's not, I took it out again. See largest naval battle in history. Gdr 18:11, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
 * You're wrong. If a tribe fought with one million canoes, does that count? The only modern battle on that list was actually a campaign consisting of FOUR battles.

-G

Radio vs. Flags and Searchlights

 * Also signals made with flags or searchlights from the flagship (usually placed at the head of the center column) could be seen by many ships. In a single column it would often take 10 minutes or more for a signal to be passed from the flagship at the front of the column to the last ship at the end, since smoke from the funnels often made it impossible to identify signals on ships behind the one directly ahead or behind, so every ship had to repeat the signal for the following one to understand. The time required for this was often doubled as most signals had to be confirmed by every ship before they could be executed.

I thought everything was wireless at this point. Were flags perhaps used in order to maintain radio silence? Were flags or searchlights actually used in this battle? (The explanation is pretty long if not.) Tempshill 01:00, 8 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, flags and signal lights were used for tactical orders. Radio was used very sparingly (e.g. Beatty to Jellicoe reporting the German position). Partly this was due to fear of interception and partly due to conservatism of British signal doctrine. Andrew Gordon has a lot to say about the latter in The Rules of the Game, and the explanation is, as you surmise, pretty long. Gdr 13:10, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

removed reference to German superiority in fire control systems
While it is fully worth mentioning the superior number of hits the German gunners achieved, it is clear that their success in this vital measure of battle was not attributable to a technical advantage over the Royal Navy. The claim removed mentioned that the British adopted an inferior system of fire control. I surmise that this was an allusion not to the comparative virtues of British versus German systems, but to the relative merits of the Dreyer tables the Royal Navy employed and A. H. Pollen's Argo systems they chose not to acquire.

The primary reasons for the German performance advantage were attributable to disparities in degree and freshness of drill on the part of the opposing gunnery officers and men involved in the Run to the South and in the visibility conditions during that period. Both of these favored Hipper's ships. If a German advantage in any element of the many pieces of equipment that constitute a fire control system can fairly be claimed, it would be that their stereoscopic rangefinders were better than the Royal Navy's coincidence rangefinders at ranging on ships enwreathed in smoke in conditions of fading light.

To touch briefly on the Argo versus Dreyer issue I felt was reflected in the stricken phrase, the opinion that Argo equipment would have served the Royal Navy better at Jutland is a widely-held view emanating from an infuential 1989 work by Prof. Jon Sumida: "In Defence of Naval Supremacy". This little-studied and intricate field of study has long relied on this single impression because it defies casual approach and examination. Luckily, the topic enjoys renewed debate in the recent publication of John Brooks's "Dreadnought Gunnery at the Battle of Jutland". With luck, more researchers will lend their own mind to the topic over time, as its richness certainly invites a number of viewpoints.

Having said all that....

One aspect that does perhaps remain relevant to comparisons between the British and German fire control at Jutland is actually that the Dreyer system is more similar to the German methods of fire control than was the rejected Argo equipment in that the Dreyer systems, like those of Germany, were fundamentally friendly to incorporating the input of multiple rangefinders in their calculations of the solution, whereas Argo was cyclopic in this regard. This further undermines the inference that Dreyer equipment, as opposed to Argo equipment, could have contributed to a disparity in results between British and German accuracy at Jutland. If anything, the use of Dreyer as opposed to Argo gear would have tended to make British and German attainments in accuracy more similar.