Last Ride of the High Seas Fleet - Battle of Texel 1918

so one of the questions that comes up for Q&A on a semi-regular basis is the following what if the high seas fleet had obeyed their orders and sailed out for one last confrontation with the grand fleet in 1918 it's a question large enough that trying to fit it into a few minutes of a drydock episode isn't really going to do it justice so here it is in a special format instead given that we're essentially looking at the Battle of Jutland two electric boogaloo let's start out by looking at what had changed on both sides since that confrontation in 1916 on the German side the obsolete pre-dreadnought had been decommissioned reducing overall capital ship numbers counterbalanced by the introduction of two new battleships with 15-inch guns the bharden and bayern and the new battle cruiser Hindenburg which offset the loss of lützow at Jutland however the dreadnought battleship Rheinland had been damaged beyond repair by running aground in the baltic this left the fleet at a core strength of 18 battleships and 5 battle cruisers admiral scheer had been promoted out of active fleet command and admiral hipper the commander of the German battlecruisers at Jutland was now in charge of the high seas fleet additionally german signals security had improved significantly so the british would not be able to sail ahead of the germans based on intercepting the germans own signals this time moreover the germans were deliberately trying to force a fleet battle as opposed to being taken by surprised by the ground fleet as at Jutland so they would be expecting the british fleet to appear however with the fleet largely inactive since Jutland morale had dropped with a number of mutinies and near mutinies taking place in 1917 and 1918 perhaps most critically a signal had gone out recalling all u-boats a few days earlier on the British side the ground fleet was now at a strength of thirty-five dreadnought battleships and nine battle cruisers unlike most of the German ships a larger number of these ships had come into service since the start of the war and about a third of them were armed with the highly effective 15-inch gun whilst three battle cruisers had been lost at Jutland this had been remedied by the recall of HMAS Australia and the completion of HMS renown and HMS repulse the courageous and glorious were also around in the battle cruiser fleet albeit of questionable tactical value ironically this left the overall battle cruiser numbers identical to Jutland albeit with all the British battle cruisers now concentrated in one location and with two of their oldest ships replaced by two brand new ones in battleship terms the dreadnought herself was in reserve albeit that she hadn't been at Jutland either and superb and temeraire had been transferred to the Mediterranean HMS Vanguard had destroyed itself in a magazine explosion whilst at anchor in 1917 this was counterbalanced by for additional revenge class battleships coming into service Rama Lee's resolution Royal Oak and Royal Sovereign along with Queen Elizabeth and Emperor of India being back out of the dockyards finally the sixth battle squadron had been formed with the u.s. battleships New York Texas Florida Arkansas and Wyoming a six strong unit of aircraft and seaplane carriers named the flying squadron in a bit of naval tongue-in-cheek had also been formed primarily for scouting purposes in addition to the fitting of aircraft catapults too many battleships upper turrets although some torpedo carrying aircraft were also present in the flying squadron but the most critical issues the ones that caused the biggest problems at Jutland namely poor flash protection in ammunition handling lack of deck armor over magazines deficient armor-piercing shells and too few destroyers had all been addressed to varying degrees the ammo handling procedures had been revised and the flash doors removed in 1915 and 1916 had been replaced storage of large amounts of ammunition in the turret was also expressly forbidden the armor-piercing shells many of which had detonated almost upon contact at Jutland were replaced by new greenboys shells with significantly better penetration performance over the older shells along with actual working fuses extra armor had been worked into some ships and the fleet now had almost three times as many destroys as the Germans rising to almost four times as many if you include related flotillas such as those based further south along the British coast they also had a number of flotillas of k-class fleet submarines of somewhat questionable value morale was high and many were looking forward to a rematch and the fleet had relocated further south to be closer to any potential action on the other hand the Spanish flu pandemic reached its peak in the ground fleet in the autumn of 1918 with approximately 6% of the fleet sailors taken ill and 1% dead lastly Admiral Jellico like Scheer had been promoted out of Fleet command and the new commander-in-chief was Admiral Sir David Beatty although a far more aggressive commander his lack of fire discipline and perhaps more critically his absolutely terrible flag officer had led to many of the issues at Jutland not related to mechanical and physical issues whilst the former was corrected he was still hauling around flag officer Seymour - everybody's detriment the German plan was to attacks in the channel and Thames Estuary to draw out the British with a line of submarines aiming to intercept and damage the fleet before the battle itself although a number of submarines sent on this mission were either lost or damaged in the process of getting into position this combined with the fact that speed and detection issues hadn't really improved much since Jutland meant it was unlikely that this would have had much effect despite the improvements in German signal security the British seemed to have become aware over a week before of the upcoming operation and were preparing to sail at a moment's notice to the point they'd even correctly anticipated the submarine trap and the date of the high seas fleet sailing in the event the fleet didn't sail due to mutiny the British being unaware of this thought the postponement was due to fog the British plan on the other hand did not aim for direct confrontation but rather to position the fleet to cut off the German retreat and force a fight to the last man Admiral Scheer seemed optimistic about this stating after the war that it was highly probable an expedition as a feed might achieve a favorable result if sofrito suffered losses it was to be assumed that the enemy's injuries would be in proportion and that we should still have sufficient forces to protect the u-boat campaign in Zanussi which would have to be resumed as the negotiations should make imperative a continuation of the struggle with all the means at our disposal so was he right considering everything we've mentioned so far let's plot out a hypothetical timeline of events now a few quick notes before we start this timeline hasn't just been drawn out of thin air it starts with a base assumption that the German fleet and the British fleet would act roughly in concert with their orders and the historic preparations leading up to the end of October 1918 with of course the sole exception that the German fleet doesn't immediately mutiny on being told that they are going to go out to sea now once they're out and about obviously there is all sorts of variables that could affect what actually happened so to take this into account the scenario was war gamed about three times by three different groups of people each at my local wargaming group so that's a total of nine runs each run of course was different and this was done using the blind command method now this involved having for each group a table where all the Arius miniatures and markers were laid out showing where the ships were but the two commanders were not allowed to see this instead they were cordoned off behind a couple of barriers and they were informed by their signals officers of what could and couldn't be seen and what they could see was regulated by the judges for the various games the commanders would then order deployments and certain actions like opening fire etc and results would be relayed back to them each game using a slightly streamlined version of the normal rules considering the large number of ships that were involved took about two to two and a half hours to complete with an attendant compilation of the results afterwards I can go into a lot more detail about this I'm not going to do so here in the video if you really really want to find out find me on the discord server at some point when I am online after the known war games were completed we looked for common elements running through all three and compiled these together into a single coherent timeline so what you're about to hear is an approximation of based on what at least what we could determine what would have happened 30th of October 19 1808 hundred hours the high seas fleet sorties with the raiding elements preceding an hour or so earlier at higher speed ten hundred hours via radio intelligence and seaplane patrols the Royal Navy confirms a major fleet movement is underway signals are sent to the Grand Fleet informing them that the German high seas fleet is likely sailing and looking for a confrontation 1030 hours anticipating the German action the grand fleet is already at steam pressure so weighs anchor and proceeds to steam South 1300 hours further flying boat patrols confirm light forces moving ahead of the high seas fleet Sir Reginald tier which orders the Harwich force and Dover force to prepare for action and converge in the Thames Estuary 1700 hours as the Sun sets the German fleet begins to swing south to follow the raiding forces the ground fleet is steaming southeast across the North Sea 31st of October 1918 0 400 hours to its combined forces make steam toward their rendezvous point zero 700 hours as the Sun rises eight British light cruisers and 41 destroyers meet the four light cruisers and five destroyers assigned to raid the Thames Estuary somewhat by surprise on both sides the German forces dump torpedoes into their enemy's paths and beat a hasty retreat some damage from gunfire is sustained on all sides but no ships I immediately lost however with British Southern forces also concentrated in this area the three light cruisers and five destroyers that make up the other half of the second scouting group find their targets off the Flanders Coast almost unprotected as these reports filter in tier Witt orders three of his light cruisers and the sixth destroyer flotilla to break off and head for that area Oh 800 hours taking account of the reports of the second scouting group hipper orders the remaining scouting forces including the battle cruisers to assist the Thames Estuary group with all speed however garbled reports from a u-boat indicate British forces to the north and the first scouting group swings around to investigate as the main body of the fleet presses on hipper believes that these forces are the British battle cruisers and intends to sweep around to the west to cut off retreat as the first scouting group leads them south now at this point the narrative is going to be almost exclusively from the German perspective until the end mainly just to try and keep things coherent and make sure people don't get confused as we switch back and forth Oh 900 hours fleet screen elements of the grand fleet and first scouting group encounter each other Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter aboard SMS Hindenburg spots heavy smoke to the northeast and quickly realizes the lead ship is Vice Admiral Sir William Pakenham aboard HMS Lyon the German forces swings south east and Pakenham swings South by southeast on converging courses as the fleet screens retire under a hail of mutual bombardment Oh 945 hours as the range closes to 20,000 yards Pakenham checks his map and orders the hoisting of the flag to engage the enemy moments later HMS renown third in line opens up with its 15-inch guns the bursts of gunfire spreading rapidly down the battle line as the Battle of the Texel begins Oh 955 hours the first scouting group begins to return fire as the range closes somewhat hampered by low Sun off the port bow the Germans are outnumbered almost two to one and have been under fire for at least ten minutes at this point but their gunnery is steady von Reuter notices Hindenburg seems to be more lightly engaged shortly before death flinger disappears under a cloud of smoke and fire she sails out of it moments later with a huge column of flames shooting up from her super super firing forward turret in an identification error reminiscent of the Battle of Jutland repulse renown and tiger have all engaged the iron dog while repulse should have been targeting the flagship a 15-inch shell has pierced the Barbet and the turret is gone the forward turret is also uninhabitable due to the immense heat with the surviving crew running to the prow of the ship in an attempt to stay as far away from the flames as possible moving at full speed the bridge and four masts are enveloped in flames as well and the ship's begins to swerve out of line ten hundred hours the fight is not all one-sided lion is taking a savage beating as the two flagships trade body blows almost independent of the Furious Karen aid going on behind them lion is noticeably down by the bow as a pair of shells from Hindenburg have opened up huge gashes in the whole forward of the main armor belt suddenly huge counts of water splash up several hundred yards to port the salvo is short but repulse has finally decided to shoot at the correct target ten ten hours Malka von der Tann and sayd --let's are fighting for their lives against Princess Royal New Zealand Australia inflexible and indomitable with courageous and glorious rendering some questionable support Malta switches fire to Princess Royal after initially aiming for New Zealand which was closer but the smaller ship proves maddeningly impossible to actually hit sailing through plumes of water to little apparent effect say--let's correctly identifies the largest shell splashes as coming from the two large like cruisers at the rear and takes aim moments later courageous she is out of line smoke and steam venting through a massive hole in her side the shells have been blasted right through whatever excuse for Armour was present and detonated amidst the boiler rooms she is doomed this is a small comfort to von der Tann as australia and inflexible have systematically stripped her of her main armament with repeated 12-inch hits likewise mult car is rolling dangerously after a series of hits of wrecked her center section and admitted thousands of tons of water princess Royal's ex turret on the other hand is a mangled mess but von Reuter orders his forces to pull away west by Southwest towards the high seas fleet dare flinger still a flame is unable to respond Malta and von der Tann are unable to make the necessary speed say--let's manages to break away and Hindenburg although battered likewise makes a break for it as Pakenham signals the pursuit and orders repulse to come alongside lion to transfer his flag 1030 hours continued fire from Malka and the rear turrets of dere flinger ward off immediate further pursuit as the British turned to silence them with heavy guns and von der Tann eventually submits to a death by a thousand cuts as the guns of the British 12-inch battle cruisers pound it into submission however a full aside of gunfire signals the arrival of the high seas fleet having executed a simultaneous turn SMS Kaiser now leads the counter-attack and the British are the ones forced to fall back leaving the badly damaged lion to attempt to reach the cover of the Dutch coast it may be occupied by Germany but the waters are at least shallow 1100 hours the two remaining battle cruisers of the first scouting group rejoined the main force Hindenburg is down one turret and its portside secondary battery but Sade 'lets is surprisingly intact the fleet slows to take on survivors as it passes the sinking forms of the other three vessels seeing that Dellinger although badly aflame and listing might be salvageable von Reuter orders the light cruisers of the Flanders group coming up behind to try and take it in tow once they arrive 11:30 hours rescue operations are suspended as smoke is sighted on the eastern horizon fast-moving capital ships are spotted and a cheer goes up as the high seas fleet crewmen believe the British battle cruisers have returned only to fall under their guns but it is not the battle cruisers instead the noonday Sun reveals the onrushing forms of the fifth battle squadron racing ahead Southwest initially to try and save the lion and survivors from courageous remembering the damage they wreaked to his forces at Jutland hipper orders the fleet to a northeastern closing course but a subordinate points out another shape bursting through the long smoke trail of the fast British battleships with Sparks and ash flaring from her overtax engines the squatter form of another battleship emerges the lookout reports her masts are strange larger than normal perturbed at being overtaken the USS Texas is leading the sixth battle squadron at 22 and a half knots as the engineers pour everything I have into the effort behind the colossal clouds of smoke and cinders they put out come in a seemingly endless stream of dreadnaughts battle flags flying from every mast and line they can find it is the grand fleet 11:40 hours hipper realizes the grand fleet lies between him and home and orders a change of course again this time to the north his strategy is simple the grand fleet can pass him on a near parallel opposite course but to stop him simply going around their rear formation the fleet will have to turn the grand fleet hasn't shown the ability to turn together like the high seas fleet if they double back half their fleet will be obscured by their own ships turning away from him will give Him respite turning into him we'll leave the turning ships of honorable and the ships following having their guns masked as long as the high seas fleet can survive the first pass they should be able to focus on the rear of the grand fleet as it passes and position themselves to fight through to home reports from SMS Kaiser indicate scouting destroyers attacked and destroyed a large submarine to the north hipper orders the destroyers to be more careful the high seas fleet is approaching the u-boat patrol line and he has a feeling they've just sunk a friendly minor details however are driven from his mind as the leading elements of both fleets opened fire 1215 hours the battle has been raging for nearly half an hour ships on both sides have taken multiple hits the leading elements of both fleets suffering badly from the constant attention but the queen elizabeth's have proven just as tough as before and are dealing out heavy punishment Barham is falling out of line as it passes Koenig but in its wake it leaves Posen and thüringen almost stopped in the water with the following ships having to divert around them Posen is settling in the water after a series of 15-inch hits on the waterline and thüringen is struggling after a massive salvo from can saw tore off all of its funnels and most of the rest of the superstructure byun and bharden are in the process of shifting targets to valiant and Malaya whilst Koenig targets Warspite when a desperate message is relayed down the line multiple torpedoes are in the water ahead of the fleet source unknown Kaiser has taken a hit and is slowing Kaiser in has taken three hits and is listing badly even has eyes turned forward the SMS Emden is blown clean in two as it takes a hit deliberately or accidentally that was otherwise headed for the Koenig Albert hippo wonders if the attacks are a horrible case of friendly fire but decides it really doesn't matter at this point and orders the torpedo boats to look out for any and all submarines or torpedo tracks on the other hand HMS Colossus takes multiple hits from several battleships at once having drifted closer to the German fleet than the rest of her score Turan she explodes as multiple magazine detonations ripped the ship apart and is lost with all hands 1230 hours hippo orders Hindenburg and Sade 'lets to guard the rear of the fleet as the battered fifth battle squadron makes to turn towards the Germans not doubling back but using their superior speed to try and loop around the Germans rare valiant and Malaya are really struggling now but Bayern and Baden aren't in much better shape with the Americans having passed down the range and engaged them as well the high seas fleet formation is breaking up around stopped slowed and foundering ships and the tail end of the grand fleet's battle line is only just beginning to engage hipper orders a course change north by northeast in an attempt to clear the line and use the smoke and damage ships to shield some of the more intact ones with her three sisters falling out of line Warspite now leads the american squadron in a sweep around the German rear engaging in a ferocious gunnery jewel with Sade le'ts as New York and Texas engage Hindenburg the two German battlecruisers by as much time as they can but the result is never in doubt although sporting some new scars Warspite and the sixth battle squadron put them down with heavy body blows a reduced northern half of the second scouting group fresh from the Thames Estuary appears on the western horizon hipper immediately orders them to attack the remnants of the fifth battle squadron and their American compatriots to clear the rear of the high seas fleet just as bian loses most of its engine power as HMS Orion brings its guns to bear however hot on their heels comes tier wit and the bulk of the Harwich force hipper instead changes his orders to the second scouting group being told to stand their ground and diverts all remaining scouting forceful pedo boats to help a furious melee develops as to its forces weighed in the light cruisers blasting in all directions even as the ground fleets own destroyers begin to move in from the east as they perceive the high seas fleets own light forces screen to suddenly diminish 1350 hours the British battle cruisers make a reappearance having looped back around the entire grand fleet they are now crossing the German T in the north their own screening forces moving to help to it even as they start raining shells on the German front line turning to get a better bead on Princess Royal the Prince Regent Leopold catches a full salvo from HMS Asian cause massive turret farm and vanishes in a row of water and flame nothing is left once the smoke is cleared 1400 hours realizing he is now boxed in on all sides hipper decides the only remaining card he has to play is to sell his ships as dearly as possible the remaining German ships make a hard turn southeast and drive headlong at the Grand Fleet it is a brave gesture but only eight of the ships emerge from the pool of smoke that roughly marks the original German line of advance two more emerge minutes later but that is all the rest of the fleet is crippled or sinking 1415 hours with nothing left to lose the German ships cut loose with every gun they have in every direction possible the ground fleet responds in kind and soon visibility aboard the German ships is reduced to almost nothing amidst a storm of spray and splinters amidst all the chaos Grouse occur first slows up and strikes her colors a crew having had enough and have overpowered the officers willing to fight but not willing to commit suicide firing on the ship slows and stops with bharden paying the price and almost a full battle squadron of the grand fleet now focuses their attention solely on hippos flagship 1420 hours the surrender of Grouse occur first has been noted on both sides and mark Griffin helgeland are soon likewise stopped with their colors struck the other ships either not caring or too badly damaged to do anything about it proceeded on their mission with quranic' the last two full silent shot to pieces in a last attempt to ram the Bellerophon 14 45 hours as the last firing of the big guns begins to die down the German light force is still fighting to the west begin to make their choices some break for the open sea others run for the german-occupied Coast still others stand and die a small group decide to strike their colors in imitation of three of the la larger German ships 1500 hours it's all over of the mighty high seas fleet capital warships five remain afloat and salvageable the others are either sinking or Everette probably damaged and will sink overnight losses amongst cruisers and destroyers will take time to determine but about a dozen like German ships have escaped into gathering darkness and another dozen lie motionless under flags of truce on the British side four of the K class submarines whose confused but vital torpedo assault was the key turning point have failed to report in courageous went down about an hour ago glorious also went down toward the end of the battle cause unknown lion is grounded in the shadows of terschelling and will not be recoverable all of the other battle cruisers have medium to heavy damaged of one degree or another with the exception of renown which avoided shell damage but took a torpedo at the last moment and is heading home undertow and of course New Zealand whose sole casualty is a stoker overcome with heat exhaustion the battleships that things are rather different Barham led a valiant charge but suffered for it she will found her undertow in the Thames Estuary shallows eventually being refloated and refitted after the war Malaya and valiant will both need six to eight months in dock Warspite on the other hand is battered all over but mostly in fighting shape Texas is under tow her engines having given out under the immense strain but otherwise mostly intact Florida however is being evacuated as water laps over her rear turrets several broadsides from bharden have left her with flooding in too many compartments to be saved New York and Arkansas are also both heavily damaged New York has lost its forward turret and most of the starboard secondary battery Arkansas is essentially disarmed and in danger of foundering Neptune is likewise going down this time by the bow a combination of hits and fires in her forward turret leaving her unsalvageable Bellerophon is adrift but will be taken under tow Asian Corps has only three turrets left in action and multiple holes below the waterline but with assistance from Aaron is just about capable of keeping herself afloat assuming the weather doesn't get worse a dozen other battleships are badly damaged but not at risk of sinking although the Germans have put up a furious fight the two to one and three to one advantage is held by the ground fleet during most of the fight have simply overwhelmed the German ability to reliably reply before they could settle the range themselves and so ladies and gentlemen that concludes what I believe to be a fairly plausible interpretation of the last ride of the German high seas fleet of 1918 had it actually occurred in a sort of blooper reel I will go over some of the things that occurred in a few of the war games but we left out when collating the overall timeline in one particular game the battle basically didn't happen see more hosted the wrong flag and sent the Grand Fleet heading off towards the east whilst the high seas fleet headed off towards the west to which force was badly overwhelmed although it inflicted some damage with master Peter salvos with the high seas fleet being called to break off and returned back to Germany once German scouting forces reported the Grand Fleet heading straight for them with nothing in between the Grand Fleet obviously then didn't want to enter the German minefields and broke off heading back into the North Sea and the high seas fleet returned to port the particular person role playing Beattie in that battle suggested summarily executing Seymour and dumping him overboard another thing we left out was one of the lead German battleships exploding under fire and through a series of spectacularly bad dice rolls the next three battleships behind either failed to notice or fail to dodge and ended up plowing right into it although in several cases the high seas fleet screening forces tried to attack the grand fleet screening forces basically the grand fleet screening forces were far too large and annihilated the Germans whilst torpedo salvo has cross criss-cross in each direction with completely random results as a result of which the two scenarios in which the Harwich force caught up with the foot battle while it was still going on were considered and brought forward into the main timeline as it meant that both sides light screening forces actually got to do something other than die pointlessly the k-class submarines were a rather interesting outlier as well basically in essentially every what game except for the one where they went off in completely the wrong direction the k-class were ordered to submerge around the same time that the grand fleet received a signal from the battle cruiser fleet that the engagement had begun and they then worked their way towards the north in an attempt to intercept at the high seas fleet and torpedo one of these attempts actually went spectacularly well with the K class rather implausibly arriving in good order in just the right place at just the right time and ended up sending about a third of the German fleet to the bottom in a single massive torpedo strike in three other attempts they kind of showed up in roughly the same area but failed to engage properly with just sporadic hits coming in now and then including one rather memorable incident where one K class having got completely turned around ended up sending torpedoes at the back end of the British fleet but in the bulk of cases the cake loss flotillas got to roughly the right area and launched an approximately manageable torpedo attack take causing some casualties in the German fleet and causing the fleet to break off its course slightly and slow down to figure out what the hell was going on and that's what led to the outcome in the timeline that you've just heard final items of note are that von Reuter Pakenham hipper and bTW all manage to get themselves killed in various scenarios with their bridges being taken out but this only happened I think once / Admiral and twice for Pakenham because Lyon really took a bit of a battering so on the overall balance of probabilities it wasn't seen as a likely outcome one last scenario that was played in the evening we chose to excise from our overall results from the point where the ground sea grand fleet was sighted and that was basically because having kind of seen how the first six scenarios had gone the person playing hipa in that particular scenarios decided screw it as soon as I see the highs the grand fleet coming the entire high seas fleet just turned East and death rode straight into the 5th and 6th battle squadrons now that admittedly did do an awful lot more damage the 5th and 6th were almost completely wiped out but the high seas fleet was in turn almost completely wiped out in fact basically was wiped out to a man by the oncoming rest of the British Grand Fleet and it was decided by everybody that this kind of like suicidal completely suicidal charge was probably a bit out of character for HIPPA and so we didn't take that particular one into account so there you go I hope you enjoyed that and let me know in the comments all Dover and discord what you think if you have any further questions as to how this various scenarios played out any questions about the overall collated scenario or any thoughts of your own thank you very much that's it for this video thanks for watching if you have a comment or suggestion for a ship to review let us know in the comments below don't forget to tag your question with Q&A if you want to leave a question for the drydock

Channel: Drachinifel

Views: 318,482

Keywords: Battle of Jutland, Battle of Texel, High Seas Fleet, Grand Fleet, World War 1, 1918, Battle of Jutland 2, What-if, Alternate History, 6th Battle Squadron, Baden, Bayern, Hipper, Beatty

Id: YrTeYcRXDEw

Length: 34min 45sec (2085 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 17 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/TheKremlin1987]

An excellent listen, thank you!