Gefechtskehrtwendung.

This is coolbert:

From a comment to the blog:

"anonymous said... British Admiral Jellicoe achieved tactical surprise and advantage. He retained that advantage through the daylight hours. He managed to cross the German T twice."

"He managed to cross the German T twice"

And this is correct. The goal of every battleship admiral of the time leading a division of ships or massed divisions of ships into naval combat was to CROSS THE T of the adversary!

"Crossing the T or Capping the T is a classic naval warfare tactic attempted from the late 19th to mid 20th century, in which a line of warships crossed in front of a line of enemy ships, allowing the crossing line to bring all their guns to bear while receiving fire from only the forward guns of the enemy."

And in this regard Jellicoe at Jutland was twice successful. With results, however, that were less than what the British commander had hoped for.

The German commander Scheer realizing what dire peril the High Seas Fleet was in, ordering and having his fleet escape danger by the use of the well worked out and practiced Gefechtskehrtwendung! "180° turn in unison ('battle about turn to starboard')"

All ships in line executing simultaneously a 180 degree turn, in the aftermath of the maneuver the first ship becoming last and the last becoming first.

"all ships [simultaneously execute] a 180-degree turn, then reversed course again to form a keel line, beginning with the last ship of the line was now the first and vice versa.

Twice the German High Seas Fleet during Jutland in danger of annihilation, but able on both occasions able to escape by a successful reversal of course - - the Gefechtskehrtwendung executed flawlessly, much to what I expect was the consternation and surprise of Jellicoe!

"it is an effective counter-maneuvers for Crossing the T represented. With the help of the battle-face it most of the German navy in the managed Skagerrak [Jutland] battle twice, from the really devastating, "Crossing the T" of the Royal Navy to escape."

Gefechtskehrtwendung NOT an easy maneuver to execute. Indeed, had it ever been done in combat before and I suspect not!

"The German Navy, however, managed to solve the problem in a simple way: the signal to execute the maneuver was passed from ship to ship. Got the last ship in the keel line, the signal applied it. Each additional ship now turned once was to see that the ship had taken him following his turn"

A ship in the lead having signaled for the 180 degree turn in line turning only after seeing the following ship make the turn first! NO collisions!

The decision of Admiral Scheer to twice execute the Gefechtskehrtwendung maneuver!

Had to have been made without any hesitation and in an instant, so drastic is such a turning movement for large ships at sea!

The desire of Jellicoe to be written about in the history books as is Nelson did not come to pass. Jellicoe at one point in the battle had only thirty seconds to make the decision to either further pursue the German fleet or have the Grand Fleet retire from the battle as it did. The decision made to retire by Jellicoe being strongly criticized in the aftermath of Jutland was in hindsight found to be correct during later critique by the Admiralty.

coolbert.