The Battle of Jutland: Clash of Dreadnoughts

this video is sponsored by world of warships a free-to-play naval combat game that allows you to take command of dozens of warships from the 20th century use the link in the description below and the code play war ships 2018 to sign up to support the channel and receive exclusive bonuses more on this later on the Battle of Jutland was fought on May 31st 1916 between the fleet's of the British and German empires it was the last battle between mast lines of battleships in history and marked a significant moment in the course of the first world war for the two years preceding Jutland the German high seas fleet under Vice Admiral Reinhard Scheer had largely been confined to port by the numerically superior grand fleet of the Royal Navy led by Admiral Sir John Jellicoe having taken over command of the fleet in January Scheer was keen to try and win a significant victory using it of the kind that might ease the crippling blockade on Germany the premise for such a victory was fairly simple Shearer would attempt to lure just part of the Grand Fleet into battle by itself and destroy it before Jellico could bring his huge main fleet into action this part was to be Vice Admiral today with beetee's fleet of six battle cruisers and four brand-new queen elizabeth-class dreadnoughts which was based at Rosyth who react quickly to german raids across the North Sea by using his own battle cruiser force under Rear Admiral Franz hipper to raid British shipping she hoped to provoke Beattie into charging across the North Sea without regard for his own safety once engaged his ships would turn and draw Beattie toward the waiting high seas fleet destroying a major component of the British fleet before Jellico could react to events in the early hours of the last day of May 1916 shias plan was put into effect the first scouting group Hippos force steamed out of Ville Homs Harvin followed a few hours later by shears main fleet of sixteen dreadnaughts and six pre-dreadnought thus courted by cruisers and destroyers unknown to the Germans though by the time their ships were underway the entire British Grand Fleet was already at sea the previous day the appetit intercepted and decoded sheer signal ordering his planned to be put into action and the grand fleet let's go flow at 9:30 p.m. May 30th Jellico had 27 dreadnaughts plus the three battle cruisers of rear admiral horace hoods third battle cruiser squadron from ross i BG steamed west at high speed not knowing exactly what the Germans are up to Jellico ordered beated steamed to a point 100 miles northwest of the horns reef whereupon if no enemy ships were sighted he was to turn north and unite with the grand fleet just before 1:00 p.m. on May 31st Jellico receive what appeared to be useful information the Apple T informed him that she is cool sign was still transmitting from Phil honks Hartman giving the impression that he was not at sea this information was false the result of a miscommunication between staff at the Admiralty when Jellico eventually found the German fleet at sea his faith in the Apple T's information was shaken a few dozen Mart of a south of Jellico BT reached his Waypoint just after 2:00 p.m. at 2:10 seeing no sign of the enemy he signaled his squadron to turn north just minutes later a signal arrived from the cruiser HMS Galatea announcing that she had spotted and was moving to engage two German destroyers Beattie wasted little time swinging his ship around at 2:32 without even waiting for the rest of his ships to acknowledge his order the other battle cruisers followed beetee's flagship lion but Rear Admiral Xu Evan Thomas who was come on in the dreadnoughts five miles astern and could not see the flag signal clearly did not he remained steaming Northwest for seven long minutes until the signal was evently repeated by Searchlight causing his squadron to fall 10 miles behind Beattie a 239 as Evan Thomas was finally turning south Garcia signaled both Beattie Angelico again reporting the presence of multiple vessels larger than cruisers he could only be hipper almost an hour later the two battle cruiser forces engaged after hipper reversed course back to Ward's sheer with the British hot on his heels in the initial exchanges German gunnery was much better than the British several British salvos sailed miles over the German liners imprecise British range finders were compounded by the poor visibility facing east and by a westerly wind blowing smoke from British guns back between them and the enemy ships Beatty squadron also made a mistake in targeting Princess Royal correctly joined Lyon in firing a hip as flagship lit sow but Queen Mary mistakenly talented her numerical opposite number side --let's and not the second German ship as she had been ordered this left earth finger untroubled by shellfire for the first ten minutes of the battle shortly after 4:00 p.m. the rear most British battle cruiser indefatigable took a bad hit from von der Tann which penetrated a turret and ignited powder charges which have been stacked close to the guns the flat flyer resulting travelled down to the magazine the doors of which were open and detonated it in a catastrophic explosion the ship was ripped apart a thousand and seventeen men in indefatigable screw only two would survive to be plucked from the sea reeling from this loss Beattie was lucky that Evan Thomas was not coming into range of the German squadron one of the most accurate shooting formations in the raw and maybe the fifth battle squadron soon landed blows on von der Tann destroying two of her turrets and forcing her and mult kurtas exact the battle now look to be going the way of the British but at 4:26 tragedy struck again nuther a fearsome barrage from death Liam and sidle its Queen Mary suffered the same fate as indefatigable being ripped apart spine a North magazine explosion Tiger just five hundred yards behind Queen Mary turned hard to swerve around with her decks being showered by debris from the stricken battle cruiser in just 2 minutes Queen Mary had gone taking 1266 crew with her now two ships down Beattie turned to Lions captain and remarked famously there seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today unknown to the British Vice Admiral his situation was about to get even more perilous several miles to the southeast Commodore William Goodenough was leading a cruiser squadron south trying to get between Hitler and his group home at 4:38 p.m. good enough stumbled across the entire German high seas fleet and signaled Beattie Angelico to inform them five minutes later Beattie ships were turned 180 degrees around to steam north it was a retreat but Beattie Otto hopes he could now draw hipper and sheer toward the Grand Fleet which the Germans did not yet know was at sea after a brief time where Evan Thomas continued to travel south after Beattie had turned northwards the battleships eventually placed himself between Beattie and and fleet taking the brunt of the incoming fire for the next hour the British sped north with HIPPA and the leading German dreadnought in hot pursuit believing the British to be fleeing at 525 BT emerge from behind Evan Thomas and surged northeast cutting across Hitler's bounds unwilling to allow BT to cross his T a position that would enable all of BT's guns to fire against only hippos Ford armament the Germans turned East bending the vanguard of the high seas fleet out of shape 20 minutes later bt spotted the grand fleet screws vanguard and pressed further east trying to keep hip her from seeing Jellico's arrival for as long as possible the third battle cruiser squadron under Horace hood now entered the fray engaging the second scouting group to hip as East and disabling the light cruiser V Spartan the reports of British dreadnoughts in this direction alerted the German Apple to the presence of someone other than Beattie but by now it was too late at 6:13 p.m. Beattie was able to relay the position of the German fleet to Jellico while sheer 13 ships back in the German line still had no idea what was going on up ahead with the high seas fleet not far away Jellico now had to deploy the fleet from its cruising formation it was six columns of four ships into a battle line after some deliberation it was decided to turn to port to do this which would position the fleet against the dark East in the sky and make it harder for the Germans to aim at them at 6:15 the order was given and 27 dreadnoughts began to turn to port each division of four ships trotting in behind the one on its portside around them dozens of cruisers and destroyers scrambled for space and remarkably there was not one collision anywhere along the six mile long line there the armored Cruiser defense was sunk during a headlong charge toward the disabled Cruiser Wiesbaden there was further bad news for the British when Warspite took a hit to her rudder disabling it in forcing her to steam around in a circle in front of the high seas fleet hit 13 times she was eventually brought under control and sent back to Britain further east Horace Hood swung his battle cruiser to the front of the fleet whilst Beattie steam to slot in behind HMS invincible was now the lead ship of the ground and fleet and shot extremely well hitting lots ow eight times in as many minutes and turning that ship into essentially a floating wreck at 6:29 Oh Arthur a nasty hit from death thing and she became the third British ship to suffer a huge magazine detonation all but six of her 1,031 crew were killed including hood meanwhile by this time the German fleet was in a terrible position but Sawa's fought to disengage and return home and the entire fleet had now had its t cross by the British it's a vanguard was taking a hammering in at 6:36 she ordered a retreat with every ship in the line turning to starboard simultaneously within minutes they had vanished into the mist then inexplicably at 6:55 she returned his fleet about once again and steamed directly back at the Grand Fleet which by now was barely visible against the darkening sky and the retort of fire the German line buckled was shipped at the front bunching up so badly that they began to turn away on their own initiative at 7:13 she ordered a retreat once again but this time it was complete chaos with ships turning in both directions desperate to get out from underneath British fire to cover the retreat the first scouting group charged valiantly fought into what was the most powerful concentration of naval gunfire ever seen in history in a devastating hail of steel berthing it was hit 14 times in four minutes but remarkably remained afloat after this short charge the battle cruisers were pulled back with destroyers pushed forwards in a massed torpedo attack forcing Jellico to turn away to minimize the chances of damage to his ships sunset over the North Sea arrived at 8:30 p.m. and it was now time for Shearer to try and escape he knew that he couldn't hope to defeat the grand fleet from this position and that if his ships were still exposed at dawn they would be ripped apart by Jellico's fleet he had to escape either by steaming south or toward the horns reef and then south interval hums Harman knowing that the faster British ships might be able to cut him off if he went south she had decided to head for the horns reef slipping behind or if need be cutting straight through the British fleet Jellico steamed south with a screen of 57 destroyers trailing behind to keep an eye out for the Germans just before 10:00 p.m. and Jellico received more information from the Apple tea this time informing him at the German muscle fleet was 10 miles southwest of his flagship something the Jellico knew could not possibly true given the two fleets relative speeds the second round of false information put severe doubts about the appellees intelligence into Jellico's head so that when he was told at 10:40 correctly this time that the German fleet was heading to the halls' reef he did not believe them further decoded messages which indicated she is course would not passed on the Jellico at all he was essentially blind at 11:20 p.m. the high seas fleet began to cut into the destroyer screen trailing behind the Grand Fleet over the next few hours it cut a swathe through the 4th and 12th destroyer flotillas sinking four and heavily damaging many more the pre-dreadnought poem with loft of British torpedoes while the destroyer spitfire rammed a dreadnought 'no sound by 2 a.m. the germans had reached the horns reef and safety incredibly despite multiple British dreadnoughts seeing the battle taking place and seeing German dreadnaughts close to them none had thought to let Jellico know what was going on and let alone open fire throughout the battle de Fleur vinter mission back to the commander-in-chief had been woefully inadequate to illustrate this it wasn't until the following day that Jellico even knew that indefatigable when Queen Mary had been sunk at all Beattie simply hadn't told him the Battle of Jutland was costly to both sides the British lost three battle cruisers three armored cruisers and eight destroyers in 6760 eight men Germany lost one battle cruiser the litsa which had to be abandoned in the end one pre-dreadnought four light cruisers and five destroyers and 3058 men in addition many of Germany's ships were severely damaged and would require many weeks in drydock whereas that British main battle line was relatively lightly damaged only Marlborough and Warspite had sustained real damage a detailed analysis of gentlemen is a story for another time but we can say here that it was strategic Lee a British victory whereas Scheer was left with just ten operational dreadnaughts and reported that he couldn't go to sea into August Jellico reported at 9 p.m. on June 2nd just two days after the battle that he could sail once again with four hours notice with 24 dreadnaughts when the two fleets did briefly sortie in August 1916 the British numbered 28 dreadnaughts to the Germans 15 sheer soon returned to pause British naval supremacy was intact as a New York news report put it the German fleet has assaulted its jailer but it is still in jail a big thank you to world of warships for reaching out to sponsor this video as I said earlier on water warships is a free-to-play game where you can command some of history's and most iconic ships including many that took part in the Battle of Jutland featured today each of these is rendered in game with a brilliant attention to detail making each ship look as realistic as possible as someone who has played over a thousand games of water warships I can highly recommend it as a blend of both action and tragic gameplay there is a lot of fun with friends to sign up and also support this channel used a link in the description below and the code play warships 2018 to receive 250 premium doubloons a million credits three days of premium time and the premium HMS Campbeltown Tier three destroyer thanks again to world of warships for sponsoring this video a big thank you is also due to my patrons whose names you can see on the screen right now as always I simply wouldn't be here doing youtube if not for their support and I'm eternally grateful for them thank you all very much for watching have a nice Christmas and I will see you in the new year where historic graph will be kicking off 2019 with probably the most famous amphibious landing in history see them

Channel: Historigraph

Views: 737,426

Keywords: battle of jutland, jutland, skaggerak, the great war battle of jutland, dreadnought, Historigraph, hms dreadnought, battleships, castles of steel, historical analysis, documentary, DOCUMENTARY, Battle of Jutland Documentary, Documentaty, ww1, naval arms race, history documentary, Sir David Beatty, John Jellicoe, Reinhard Scheer, Franz Hipper, Royal Navy, Kaiserliche Marine

Id: JbWGRNoxGt8

Length: 14min 35sec (875 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 22 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/FullMetalChickeneer]

I like this channel, it visualized the change of battle in real time.