Jutland - Campaign Objectives?

[asheshouse]

Assuming the campaign game will cover at least the whole of 1916 what are the most important objectives for each fleet?

Although the german HSF has a disadvantage in numbers it has advantages in holding the central position and being able to choose the time and place of any action. The GF has a great asset in the intelligence produced by Room 40 from wireless intercepts, but the interpretation of the intercepts can often prove faulty. The HSF on the other hand has to rely on submarine picket lines and occasional zeppelin recconaisance the feedback from which is often too late.

The HSF has a range of targets to go at. Coastal bombardment, attacks on the Harwich flotilla, attacks on scandanavian convoys, disruption of coastal traffic, disruption of Dogger Bank fisheries, even attacks on the Thames based Pre-Dreadnoughts. The further down into the southwest corner of the north sea the HSF goes then the more likely it is to be intercepted, but it can time the return to be in hours of darkness to take advantage of the HSF's superior night training.

The GF has to maintain the blockade between Scotland and Norway, protect all the HSF's potential targets and occasionally launch aggressive raids including seaplane attacks on German ports, which requires fleet support. There is also scope for light vessel actions with back up from the heavier units.

Getting a realistic balance of strategic goals, creating potential for worthwhile action rather than months of inaction and not being too prescriptive in the range of options is going to be key to making Jutland - The Game a success.

[Bullethead]

Excellent analysis. The only thing I would add is that the Germans had bases in Flanders which could potentially threaten cross-Channel traffic.

[asheshouse]

You have a good point about the Flanders bases.

From http://www.navy.gov.au/publications/trade/dec03/bookreview.html

The German Imperial Navy submarine bases of Zeebrugge, Ostend and Bruges as its apex formed a triangle and were attractive targets. The submarine pens at Bruges, protected by massive concrete bomb shelters, were connected to Zeebrugge by a 13 kilometre canal. The base of the triangle was 19 kilometres of heavily fortified coastline between Zeebrugge and Ostend.

British monitors had previously bombarded these two ports, but it was indirect long-range gunfire due to the menacing four 12-inch guns of the Kaiser Wilhelm II battery.

Zeebrugge was also the site of an important and very active German naval air station while the Bruges-based German destroyers of the Flanders Flotilla were also an unmitigated menace to the Royal Navy and further reason to render the harbours inoperable.

The destroyers principal role was to facilitate entry and exit of the U Boats but I guess they were also involved in action against cross channel traffic. All this provided a focus of attention for both navies, with numerous minor actions taking place between destroyers and light cruisers - based on records of losses.

I guess the Flanders ports were too small to be a safe haven for major vessels and I presume Antwerp was not accessible to warships because the approaches were through neutral Dutch waters.

From "Germany's Blunt Dagger", Mark D. Karau, 2004

The creation of the Flanders Submarine, Torpedo-boat, and Destroyer Flotillas in 1915, theoretically, allowed the German navy to press the advantage of the Belgian ports. The British response to the presence of the German flotillas was to strengthen the Dover Patrol to counter the new threat, weakening the British Grand Fleet in the process. In fact, the Flanders flotillas, with the exception of the submarines, were rarely strong enough to operate independently because MarineKorps Flandern had to compete with the Baltic Fleet and the High Seas Fleet for ships. On the two occasions the flotillas had sufficient surface ships (borrowed from the High Seas Fleet) to act aggressively they carried out successful raids against the British, and tied down a large number of British warships.

From http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Zeebrugge

On the 40 m. of coast-line there were mounted 153 guns, including 6 15-in., 4 12-in., 33 1r-in., I 9.4-in., 23.8. 2-in., 73 5'9-in., 6 5-in., 11 4 . 7-in., and 52 4-in. The coast positively bristled with guns. Only 3 m. E. of the Zeebrugge canal stood the Kaiser Wilhelm II. battery (known at Dover as the Knocke) armed with 4 12-in. with a range of 41,000 yd. One and a quarter 1n. W. of Ostend was the Tirpitz battery with 4 11-in: ranging 35, 000 yd., and 3 m. E. of the town was the Deutschland (old Jacobynessen) equipped with 4 15-in. ranging 43,500 yards.

All this of course culminated in the famous Zeebrugge Raid in 1918, -- but what if this had taken place earlier?

[Bullethead]

You have a good point about the Flanders bases.

Thanks :).

I have an excellent book (well-written and very informative, but sadly the victim of low publication quality standards) called Wielding the Dagger: The MarineKorps Flandern and the German War Effort, 1914-1918, by Mark D. Karau. It's the only book I know of that focuses exclusively on this often-overlooked theater. I posted a review a couple months back. It ain't cheap, but it's worth the money.

The fascinating thing about the German Flanders bases is that they were never used to their fullest extent. Tirpitz seems to have realized that the Brits were going to use a distant blockade, so that most of Germany's pre-war plans weren't going to work. So he figured that since the army was going to take Belgium anyway, he could use the bases there to outflank the distant blockade. He envisioned basing massive amounts of DDs and subs here to cut the UK off from France and raid all around the UK. Kleinkrieg by other means.

However, only the Tirpitz faction held this view, and by the time the Flanders bases were fortified enough to be used (spring 1915), Tirpitz had fallen from grace. The other camp was still wedded to "Der Tag", even though they weren't going anywhere with the HSF at the time, so wouldn't give up the DDs to make the Flanders bases effective. And even though Scheer was a Tirpitz partisan and argued strongly for DDs in Flanders during 1915, once he got command of the HSF he, too, refused to send many DDs there. Of course, he was under compulsion to actually do something with the HSF by then, and was more interested in unrestricting the U-boats anyway. But it's significant that Flanders got its first significant DD reinforcements immediately after Jutland. But that was only temporary, and it wasn't until 1917 and the wholesale commitment to U-boats that many DDs got sent to Flanders permanently.

So, what would have happened if the Germans had sent lots of DDs there to start with? On the surface of it, it appears that by applying more pressure from Flanders, the Germans would have forced the Brits to dilute their forces more, making things easier for the HSF. But who knows? And that's the cool thing ;).

From http://www.navy.gov.au/publications/trade/dec03/bookreview.html

The destroyers principal role was to facilitate entry and exit of the U Boats but I guess they were also involved in action against cross channel traffic. All this provided a focus of attention for both navies, with numerous minor actions taking place between destroyers and light cruisers - based on records of losses.

From the book mentioned above, it was even less active than that....

Until 1917, the only real offensive potential the Germans put in Flanders was a few UB and UC subs. They put 4 DDs there, all the HSF was willing to part with, but otherwise the only surface ships were A.I type TBs. And these TBs were no match for anything the Brits had. So the subs fougth the war, the TBs swept mines to let the subs in and out, and the DDs escorted the TBs.

I guess the Flanders ports were too small to be a safe haven for major vessels and I presume Antwerp was not accessible to warships because the approaches were through neutral Dutch waters.

Very true. CLs could have been based at Zeebrugge but nothing bigger, and nothing bigger than TBs at Ostend. The canal between Ostend and Brugge was too small for DDs and large subs. And while the Germans built many A-type TBs and UB and UC subs at Antwerp, they had to go down the canal to Brugge instead of out through Dutch waters.

The coast positively bristled with guns.

That it did. It was, in fact, the most heavily fortified coast in the world at the time. Right up there with, and perhaps locally stronger than, the WW2 "Atlantic Wall".

All this of course culminated in the famous Zeebrugge Raid in 1918, -- but what if this had taken place earlier?

In 1914, Keyes wanted to blow up Zeebrugge during the Brit retreat. He was overruled by the army, who thought they'd be back in a couple of weeks ;). From that point on, the Germans began building fortifications, so that after about mid-1915, any attack would have faced pretty much the same defenses as the raiders faced in 1918. The Germans were very concerned about Brit amphibous ops in Belgium, and took the necessary precautions.

[asheshouse]

I keep coming across more minor actions that I was hardly aware of before. Hopefully the campaign will be extensive enough to allow some of these to come about in the game.

The latest I was reading about was the 2nd Battle of Heligoland Bight in 1917.

On the British side battlecruisers Tiger, Renown, Repulse, heavy cruisers Courageous and Glorious, light cruisers Calypso and Caledon plus destroyer screen.

On the german side mine sweepers, light cruisers Konigsberg, Nurnberg, Pillau, two half flotillas of torpedo boats and the battleships Kaiserin and Kaiser later joined by battlecruisers Moltke and Hindenburg.

The action came about because the germans were regularly sweeping mines in the channels either side of the Amrun Bank. The British cruiser force went in to disrupt this work but became engaged with the german covering force of light cruisers, then the heavier ships got drawn in. The germans were surprised to meet the heavy cruisers armed with 15" guns but being lightly armoured these had to withdraw in the face of the german battleships.

An interesting action with unbalanced forces it seems, but I've so far not found a detailed description of it.