"There Seems to Be Something Wrong With Our Bloody Ships Today"

That quote comes from VADM David Beatty, the Commander of the First Battlecruiser Squadron, at the Battle of Jutland, fought 100 years ago today.

There were 250 ships in both fleets, making the battle probably the largest surface gunfight up to that time.

The Germans wanted to trap the Royal Navy between a picket line of submarines and the German guns, as well as break out of their base at Wilhelmshaven. The British wanted to engage in a decisive battle, a la Trafalgar.

Neither side got what they wanted. There's been much discussion, since then, about the crappiness of British communications (an insistence on using flags with the smoke from the ships and the guns) and the crappiness of British gun shells and powder, compared to that of the Germans. Armor plating was more aimed at stopping flat-shooting projectiles, not the plunging fire of longer ranges (one reason why two of Beatty's battlecruisers blew up).

The British had a German code book and were able to get their ships in place before the Germans established a submarine picket. Despite greater losses, the Royal Navy turned back the Kriegsmarine. The Germans realized that in any subsequent fight, it was likely that the Germans would run out of ships first.

So, barring some local operations and actions against the Russian Navy in the Baltic, the German fleet acted as a fleet-in-being for the rest of the war.

A Hard Way to Make a Living

I commend to you a post by the late Neptunus Rex about life as a Landing Signal Officer.

In the early `80s, the Navy had a shortage of people who wanted to fly their airplanes. They asked people in other naval warfare communities to switch over to Naval Air. Their promise was something along the lines of "you can give us a try and, iffn you don't like it, you can go back to your old job with no career penalty".

So there was this young LT or 'JG, just off his first sea tour. He took them up on it.

Four years later, he's spotted on the D&S piers[1] in Norfolk by one of his classmates from Baby SWOS. The conversation went something like this:

"Hey, good to see you! Where're you stationed?"
"I'm Ops on USS Sumdood." (It was a FFG.)
"No kidding! I thought you became a Brown Shoe. What happened?"
"Too many night traps in an A-7."

Of all of the ways to get killed in the Cold War Navy, probably the best way was to fly airplanes on and off carriers.
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[1] "Destroyers and Submarines"-- where ships that weren't oilers or carriers were berthed.