Comments by "" (@BobSmith-dk8nw) on "Last Ride of the High Seas Fleet - Battle of Texel 1918" video.

@Drachinifel Yeah ... my buddies Naval Rules were something like that. We'd all played Jutland so we were used to moving around little bits of cardboard on the floor with maneuvering gauges. My contribution at the time was to the torpedo rules ... lot of beer spilt over that ... We did a round robin of the worlds navies, French, Italian, British, German, Japanese and American. That's the order they finished in, except the Americans beat the Germans and the Japanese. Of course - these were "balanced" scenarios so each side had the same number of ships (and of course no aircraft). We also fought a game of Great Naval Battles on my Lan. Two guys were the Germans and the guy who did the Naval Rules and I were supposed to be the Americans ... but he didn't show up ... so I was a very, very busy boy ... Americans were limited to Pearl Harbor type ships. Tirpitz took a steering hit early on though ... and that scuppered the Germans plans to use their speed. I had 3 16" gun battleships and one 14" and those 16" guns just took the Germans apart. We meant to do that again but ... somehow ... we never did ... All that was like 40 years ago ... .
4
The Germans had a very serious problem to over come and I don't know if they could have done any better. Their basic plan from the start was to try and catch parts of the Grand Fleet and do damage to them but - they needed to be able to just abort these operations as soon as it became evident that they were dealing with the main British Fleet. So - several ideas they had - revolved around catching and destroying the British Battle Cruisers and trying to get the British to cross a line of U-Boats and take hits that way. To have any real success at such attritional strategies - they needed to conduct vastly more operations than they did. They needed to come out - a lot - especially since they needed to be always aware of the road home - and taking it the moment things looked like they were going to go unfavorably. IF they could have kept up operations like that - and had some success - then they MIGHT not have had the morale problems they did - from to many sailors sitting idle to much of the time. Areas that might have helped them would have been in coordinating things with the Zeppelins and U-Boats, using them as both scouting forces and methods of attack. The thing here - is that they needed to be in the Baltic practicing these things where the British couldn't get at them. Here they could have trained against the Russians - which would have gotten them more experience and helped develop coordination with Zeppelins and U-Boats. In any case - since all the U-Boats actually accomplished was bringing the US into the war having them working with the fleet wouldn't have hurt their overall war strategy. Submarines are much more effective against commerce than against warships - but again - NOTHING was worth bringing the Americans into the war. As long as the Americans weren't in the war - Germany stood a chance. With the Americans in the war - they were doomed. Now - alternatively - the Germans could have done several things that could have won them the war: 1) Do not build the High Seas Fleet. It accomplished nothing but alienating Britain - and - if the war had just been against Russia and France the Germans and Austrians could have won that. All those men and all that steel could have been used to better effect by the Army - and wouldn't have mutinied in 1918 causing Ludendorff to panic, the Kaiser to abdicate and Germany to lose the war. 2) Do not go through Belgium. Again - just as nothing was worth bringing the Americans into the war - going through Belgium guaranteed bringing the British into the war - and nothing was worth doing that. 3) Holding on the western front against France while coordinating attacks with the Austrians against the Russians. This is pure speculation but might well have worked out better than what they did do. The Alternate Strategy for Winning the war being - keep the British and Americans out of the war - and just fight Russia and France. Without the High Seas Fleet - Germany is just another continental power the British might have worked with and not someone seen as a threat. There is a possibility that with the Hight Seas Fleet - even if the Germans hadn't gone through Belgium - the British might have answered the French pleas to join them. Without the High Seas Fleet - it's much like 1870 again. The big thing here - is that France would not have as big a fleet as the British and would have had more trouble trying to blockade Germany. If Germany were not blockaded their agriculture and food supplies would have been better and they'd not have had the starvation problems they had. Their submarines, could work as the Confederate States tried to use them, to torpedo any French Ships trying to blockade Germany. The whole thing with the High Seas Fleet - was the silly fact that Wilhelm II loved the Royal Navy and wanted to have a navy of his own. Really. THAT IS the reason the High Seas Fleet was built. There was no National Plan - the Kaiser simply wanted to have a fleet of his own. He didn't have a use for it - he just wanted one. It really is as simple and silly as that. It just didn't seem to occur to him that the British might be upset about it. .
2