Comments by "Vikki McDonough" (@vikkimcdonough6153) on "IJN I13 / Type AM class - Guide 398" video.

  1. Historically, Beatty's "turn in succession" signal (rather than "turn together") at the end of the Run to the South, combined with Seymour's failure to haul the signal flags back down to actually execute this signal, sent Fifth Battle Squadron charging south at nearly the entire High Seas Fleet, resulting in heavy damage to Warspite and Malaya before Evan-Thomas doubled back on his own initiative. However, if Seymour'd promptly executed Beatty's signal, Fifth BS would've turned back while still significantly north of the surviving battlecruisers, and, thus, instead of the German battle squadrons and part of I Scouting Group concentrating their fire on the Queen Elizabeths (the toughest ships in Beatty and Evan-Thomas's combined force by a considerable margin, the only ones aside from New Zealand to not already have taken significant damage, and the ones able to deal out the heaviest return fire to the German ships to cover the British battlecruisers' retreat), Scheer and Hipper's heavy guns would've been concentrated on the remnants of the Battlecruiser Fleet, which had already been quite roughly-handled just by Hipper's ships, were less able to take hits than the QEs even in their undamaged state, had considerably less heavy firepower with which to return the German fire, and would've also, in this scenario, been slowed in their retreat by the 24-knot top speed of the QEs ahead of them, with the trailing ship, having the brunt of the German fire directed at it, being (depending on whether Beatty makes the "turn in succession" or "turn together" order) either New Zealand (whose divine protection probably isn't rated for quite this level of incoming fire, and which, being by far the thinnest-skinned of Beatty's surviving ships, has no capability to withstand any non-glancing hit should this protection fail) or Lion (which's already down a quarter of its main battery and lugging a magazineful of water). Given, historically, how badly even the much-tougher QEs got smashed up during this phase of the battle, it's hard to believe that Beatty's remaining battlecruisers would've survived if they'd been the ones taking the brunt of the German heavy gunfire instead; additionally, with these ships lost at this stage in the battle, they can't join up with 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron for the Windy Corner action, meaning that Hood's three twelve-inch tin cans're going to be facing Hipper's ships alone rather than as part of a force that also includes three Splendid Cats, in which case I wouldn't be surprised if all three of the Invincibles go kaboom instead of just the class's lead ship. All in all, did Beatty and Seymour's poor signalling at the end of the Run to the South actually save the Battlecruiser Fleet from destruction?
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