BATTLE OF JUTLAND.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 June 1925, Page 8

BATTLE OF JUTLAND.

GERMANS CLAIM VICTORY. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyrlg-lrt. London, June 12. The Daily Mail says the fifth volume of Germany’s official history of the naval war contends that the Jutland battle was a German victory because the British losses in men and ships were twice those of the Germans. It approves Lord Jellicoe’s determination to deploy from the German fleet as the best course after the failure of the British scouting service. It doubts whether Lord Jellicoe ever intended to fight a decisive action and blames Lord Jellicoe for his adherence to a rigid stiff line of battle. GUNNERY AT JUTLAND VISIBILITY CONDITIONS. It is generally assumed that German gunnery at Jutland was excellent, while that of the British—especially that of the battle-cruisers —was poor, writes a correspondent in Engineering. Such ft conclusion will inevitably be arrived at unless the visibility conditions are accurately studied. The loss of Indefatigable, and the narrow escape of Lion, are to be attributed to faulty construction. In each case the damage resulted from single chance shots striking turrets (eye-wit-nesses’ reports), and flashing off the magazines via the cordite train from gunhouse to magazine. German ships, when similarly hit, in no case blew up. It is certainly true that, in the first phase of the action, the German ships hit oftener than they were hit, but there is a very real reason for this, vis,, that the visibility east to west was so vastly superior to that west to east that, for all practical purposes, the British ships were out of action. The key to the visibility conditions at Jutland is to be found in Von Hase’s book, for he gives information which enables one to assign to “visibility” not merely a relative, but an absolute value, which one may illustrate as follows from personal experience. When out for a shoot off Start Bay, we had to close to 3500 to see the target to the east of us, as a strong east wind was raising a vertical misty haze. To the west, one could see “flies crawling up the Starlight” at 10 miles. Assuming our target was firing back at us, we should not have had a dog’s chance unless the traget’s gunnery was, to put it mildly, rotten. At Jutland, the German battle-cruisers picked up our battle-cruisers 12 minutes before we could see them—not a bad commencement.

Concerning the very excellent gunnery conditions which the Germans had during the first phase of the action, one is justified in concluding that had German gunnery been even average, not a single British battle-cruiser should have got away. Now the visibility conditions are accurately known, it seems evident that, not only was German gunnery not superior to British, but was considerably inferior.