Comments by "John Fisher" (@johnfisher9692) on "Drachinifel" channel.

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  7. I know you don't like Beatty but I feel it unfair blaming him for getting the range wrong at Jutland. He wasn't personally in the spotting top taking range readings, he probably ordered fire to be opened at a range the Germans couldn't respond to and his subordinates got it wrong. Nor did he personally hoist diganl flags, your video on Jutland shows it was Tiger's job to pass along signals to 5thBS and she didn't. As for the distance between 5thBS and the BCF, weren't both forces zigzagging as was standard practice in wartime? Both forces were moving away from each other at jsut the wrong time. A case of massive luck for the Germans, maybe 10 minutes later they would have been converging. I also feel you give Hipper and Scheer far too much praise. They both made massive blunders at Jutland, once Beatty drew out of range, WHY did they chase him??? The HSF couldn't catch him and Hipper didn't want the fast BB's of 1stSG tangling with the proper BB of 5thBS. And why did neither of these supposed genius' wonder why Beatty was heading North towards Norway and not NW toward Scapa?? The HSF ultimate escape was down to two (lucky for them) factors. The earlier mistake of the officer in getting information from Room40 and a very lucky catch of the GF's recognition signal. I feel both get far too much praise when a lot of their successes come down to both some skill and huge good luck. Good luck denied Beatty. But as someone once said, "We praise the losers so much because if they were supposed to be this good and we still beat them, we must be far better"
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  8. A lot of people think Von Spee arrived off the Falklands with is entire squadron but this isn't so. He sent Gneisenau and Nurnberg ahead to scout the harbour and they were spotted. At which point the British ships started raising steam. The two German ships immediately returned to Von Spee to inform him they had seen large tripod masts in the habrour which could only mean battlecruisers or battleships. This is 1914 technology, so this takes time as they didn't use their primitive (by today's standards) radio. Von Spee would have had to organize an attack as you propose without consulting his captains and do so immediately. He had no way of knowing the state of the enemy ships or how prepared they were for sea so he made the best decision he could and tried to escape their overwhelming firepower. It wasn't until he got a good look at them that he had proof they were BC's that could outrun him so he ordered his CL's to scatter while he took on the BC's. He knew he was doomed as these ships had as big a firepower advantage over him as he did over Cradock at Coronel. The German ships had also come under fire from powerful shore battery's (Canopus) and thought the harbour was well defended. As they say, hindsight is 20/20 and it's easy to come up with the perfect solution when you have time and knowledge the person on the spot doesn't have. Von Spee's goal was to run until night fell or the weather turned and hope to slip away in the dark, but the British BC's caught up and we know what happened then.
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  40.  @Wolfeson28  I have to disagree, there are many, many vital things you are skipping. The lax ammunition handling practices so many gleefully point out also existed in German ships prior to Dogger Bank. There Seydlitz was nearly destroyed by the same thing that happened to the British ships at Jutland and only the brave and fast action by her turret crew saved the ship, thereby the Germans learned of the dangers the reinstated the safety features while the British remained ignorant, which led the the losses. The boast of better ships is counterbalanced if you consider the British heavy AP shells were defective and exploded outside the armour while the German AP shells worked as designed. So lighter but effective German shells against thinner British armour Vs heavier but defective British shells against heavier German armour. IMO the British BC;s proved their toughness in battle more so than the Germans, who should have been in better fighting condition when taking that into account. So Lutzow took only six more hits from defective shells than Tiger and was hors de combat while the slighgly less hit Tiger, hit with working shells was still looking for a fight the next day. Tiger for the win. Add in the German advantage of being designed for limited short duration cruises in the North Sea while British ships had to be able to operate anywhere in the world, so German ships could afford to be more closely subdivided than ships of other Navy's. In harbour German crews left the ships and lived in barracks ashore, again not something other Navy's did. And at the rangers the guns were firing at, you're lucky to hit the ship at all, much less the turret as the Germans had a habit of doing, It's a combination of excellent training, excellent optics, a bit of good fortune where the shells hit and the sun favoring the German ships at the start of the battle. It all adds up. Another point few research is how German gunnery quickly worsened as battle wore on due the the intense strain of using their excellent rangefinders while the British system took longer to get on target but once there it stayed on target as the system was easier to use, or more user friendly in today's parlance.
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