Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "Britain's Triumph: The Surrender of the German High Seas Fleet" video.

  1. Define 'victory.' Which side achieved it's objective? No, I don't remember the raid on Medway. I must have been busy that day.
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  2. Tell us, then, what the High Seas Fleet actually contributed to the German war effort after Jutland.
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  3. Indeed. A draw from which the British continued to impose their blockade, continued to control the North Sea, and after which the Germans, apart from two quickly-aborted sorties, spent the rest of the war at anchor in the Jade.
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  4. Apart from director firing before WW1, radar, asdic/sonar, aircraft carriers, HF/DF, hedgehog, squid, etc, to mention just a few.
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  5.  @harryeisermann2784  You mean like the Queen Elizabeths & the Revenges, the first oil powered battleships in the world? Or the 21 knot speed of the British WW1 battlefleet, faster than that of the US or German fleets?
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  6. Or because they had broken the terms of the November 1918 Armistice, and had effectively re-started the war, perhaps?
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  7. Indeed. The blockade continued, eventually forcing Germany to her knees, and the High Seas Fleet never took meaningful action in the North Sea again, but instead reverted to unrestricted submarine warfare which brought the United States into the war on the Allied side.
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  8.  @ionionescu6777  The fact that you haven't a credible response doesn't mean you should feel obliged to post an idiotic one.
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  9.  @ionionescu6777  Irrelevant to Jutland. The Blockade, by the way, continued until the war ended, and the war ended when the peace treaty was ratified, on 28 June, 1919. Didn't you know that?
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  10. No, they didn't. The U-boat offensive came nowhere near as close to cutting Britain's supply lines in WW2 as it had in 1917. Moreover, German resources were not limitless. Expansion of the navy would need to have been at the expense of the army & Luftwaffe. The so-called Plan Z was, from start to finish, a mirage.
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  11. Well, it was certainly good news to the British & American navies, both of whom wanted to keep the newer German ships out of Italian or French hands.
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  12.  @horstschlemmer2042  Well detracting hundreds of thousands of able bodied man and million tons of resources from the field army sounds good to me.' I agree. I wonder why the Germans did it, when their fleet after May 1916 was an irrelevance. 'The German Admirality realized that the British would probably win in an open battle the next time that’s why they turned to U-Boot raids.' Indeed, which was in effect an admission that the British Blockade was unbreakable, the civilian population would continue to starve, and the U-boat war was the only alternative, even though it probably would (and did) bring the US into the war on the Allied side. What genuinely puzzles me is that no attempts were made to raid the Channel or the Thames estuary, or to carry out a sortie, possibly using a battlecruiser force, against the blockading forces. It seems that Scheer simply concluded that the surface fleet was no longer part of the German war effort.
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  13.  @ionionescu6777  The Blockade continued until the war ended. What, by the way, had Churchill to do with it? David Lloyd George was Prime Minister at the time. Are you one of these strange people who feel the need to blame Churchill for everything for everything since the Thirty Years' War?
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  14. There seems to be a strange belief among these folk that, if a ship is scuttled, it is in some mystical manner not quite so sunk!
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  15. Quite a number were raised for scrap between the wars, but a number are still there and popular with divers. A mate of mine was there a few years ago, and said that the water is very cloudy and it is difficult to see much.
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  16.  @gruenergermane  The second unrestricted campaign began in February, 1917, and was thereafter the policy of the Imperial Navy. Where have you got the '5 german submarines' nonsense from? Similarly, 'history tells us the US-ship transported amunition under false flag' What history would that be, then? The Blockade, by the way, continued until World War 1 ended, in late June 1919 when the Treaty of Versailles was signed. If the Allies really wanted 'to kill as many huns as possible' it would have been far easier not to have agreed to a November, 1918 Armistice, but to advanced over the wreckage of the German army into the German heartland, as, I believe, Black Jack Pershing wished to do.
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  17.  @ethanstaaf404  The British gave the French the opportunity to send their ships to a French West Indian port, where it could be interned under supervision. Unfortunately, Admiral Gensoul chose not to pass on the text of the ultimatum to his government in full.
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  18. You think the British wanted them? When they were already discussing reductions in fleet sizes with the United States? Hardly!
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  19. Rather difficult to achieve when the High Seas Fleet had already been disarmed.
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  20. The British & Americans were delighted at the German action. Neither wanted France or Italy getting hold of any of the newer German ships.
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  21. France & Italy both wanted access to the better ships of the High Seas Fleet. Both the British & the United States' navies were keen that they should not acquire them. The scuttling was, possibly secretly, greeted with great relief in Washington & London.
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  22. The cruiser (Breslau) was sunk in 1918, but the battlecruiser (Goeben) survived until scrapped in 1973.
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  23. The Americans & British didn't. Certainly, however, the Germans did seem quite enthusiastic where scuttling was concerned.
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  24.  @wolfsoldner9029  To what end? After Jutland, the High Seas Fleet only emerged twice more, and carefully avoided action. I know that they didn't even try to challenge the Blockade. The point is, to have had any chance of a successful outcome to the war, they should have some method of so doing. After all, the Northern Patrol which imposed it consisted of around two dozen armed liners supported by trawlers. It was hardly the Grand Fleet.
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  25. The High Seas Fleet spent almost the whole of the war after Jutland well out of the way in the Jade estuary. Scheer experienced Jutland, and made damned sure that there wasn't another.
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  26.  @garygemmell3488  Not at all. I was simply, evidently, unsuccessfully, trying to explain the reality of the situation. The reconstituted German navy was never intended to challenge the Royal Navy, as German shipbuilding capacity was nowhere near that of Britain. From Weimar times, the belief had been that any future war in which Germany might become involved would be with Poland, or Poland & France. Thus, Weimar build commissioned commerce raiders, the Deutschlands, intended to intercept French troop convoys. The French responded with the Strasbourgs. The Germans then produced the Scharnhorsts, the French began building the Richelieus, and the Germans the Bismarcks. In short, it was a naval race between two medium/small naval powers. There was no expectation until 1938 at the earliest that the tiny German navy would ever be asked to challenge the Royal Navy. Raeder was always aware that this was a task totally beyond it. The German navy in 1939 was as ready as it was ever likely to be. It was, however, totally outmatched, and had been placed in an impossible position. You should read about the largely forgotten Franco-German naval race, as it is fascinating subject.
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  27.  @Litany_of_Fury  More probably, the Queen Elizabeth class.
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  28.  @michaelpielorz9283  The talks yes, but as Marriott pointed out, concern about a new naval arms race existed from almost immediately after the Armistice. Of course the British inspected the Baden class, but that is not the same as the suggestion that the British wanted to take ownership of some of the High Seas Fleet's newer vessels. Whatever the British may have stated publicly, and I am not suggesting that they connived in the scuttling, both they and the US were relieved that Italian & French claims on the German vessels could no longer be pressed.
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  29. Probably as well he wasn't. He would only have been ten years old!
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  30. They couldn't have been all that prepared 'to actually commit to that last stand' if the crews mutinied when the order was given, could they?
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  31.  @noobster4779  So, you say that the Germans were fully prepared to a last battle, but then you agree that it was a suicide order. Rather contradicting yourself here, I fear. You even confirm that the inactivity of the High Seas Fleet after Jutland led to a collapse in morale. The High Seas Fleet had studiously avoided battle when a successful action, however unlikely it would have been in reality, might just have influenced the outcome of the war, so the possibility of it sortieing when the war was lost was remote in the extreme. The fact is, after Jutland, the High Seas Fleet had neither the will nor the intention to face the Grand Fleet again. Scheer told the Kaiser immediately after Jutland that his fleet lacked the strength seriously to threaten British dominance in the North Sea, and he was a sound judge.
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  32.  @noobster4779  You appear to be arguing with me by agreeing with me. Very odd. Of course I know that the German Admiralty issued an order for a desperate last sortie, of course I know it would have amounted almost to mass suicide, and of course I know that many of the crews, understandably, mutinied. What are you arguing about?
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  33. Do you know how many Grand Fleet battleships were actually damaged? Two, HMS Colossus by two heavy calibre hits, and HMS Marlborough by a torpedo.
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  34. The British & US governments were happy with the outcome. Neither wanted Italy or France to get hold of the German capital ships.
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  35.  ____  This would be the armed yacht with one 12 pounder & 1 three pounder, would it?
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  36. To be honest, most had been raised and scrapped between the wars.
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  37. The British (and Americans) did not want the German fleet, but they certainly did not want anyone else getting hold of some of the better ship. Why was it 'cheap' to order the ships not to fly the German ensign. Did Prinz Eugen fly the Kriegsmarine flag when the US took hold of her in 1945?
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  38. Indeed. Jutland, because after Jutland, ther High Seas Fleet carefully avoided a repeat.
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  39. I have never seen any evidence that the British actually encouraged the Great Scuttle, but certainly they, and the US, were very pleased about it as both France & Italy were eager to grab hold of some of the newer German ships for their own fleets, and the British & US were equally eager to prevent this happening.
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  40. Actually, the scuttling was good news. The British & United States were fairly worried over demands from other navies to grab some of the German fleet, and they probably thought that the bottom of the Flow was the best place for them.
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