WWI-Jutland and fallout of possible HSF victory.

[Stark]

It also should be pointed out that Germany designed her BCs to be able to stand in the line of battle, with them carrying more armour than their British counterparts. As such, they fulfilled more the role Navies designed fast battleships for in the interwar period than the classical BC role of countering armored cruisers. Heck, they almost had 25% more armour than their British contemparies (the british had larger guns and were slightly faster).

Its just bizarre to me how common it is in pop-history books for people to just handwave away battlecruisers as an inherently bad idea, since people built them, used them, and continued to build them until cancelled by treaty. The different RN and German approaches to the balance of capability is pretty interesting in the context of what each side valued (ie the commerce defence role being more important to the RN, while the Germans needed as many ships that could hang in line as possible to make up numbers, etc).

More interesting than alt-history 'what if this one thing changed could we ignorantly discuss it like a Star Trek fanfic' anyway.

[Thanas]

Well to be honest any "battlecruiser" built after WWI was rebuilt to carry more armour and be more fast battleship-like, as the British realized their approach was a bit flawed considering any BCs built ended up in the line of battle anyway.

[Stark]

The RN BCs were pretty extreme, though; fast battleships are arguably just more balanced battlecruisers with better propulsion technology. And not crazy zero-armour 18" guns stuff.

[Thanas]

Yeah, but that is the end result of the two design theories. One was Tirpitz, who decreed that every ship built has to be built for the line of battle, whereas Fisher was more concerned with speed and specific counters (dreadnought counters pre-dread, BC counters AC etc.) The 18" gun fast ship makes excellent sense for what Fisher envisioned - a high speed ship which uses its speed to keep the enemy inside the range of its guns but outside the range of the enemy's smaller guns. It is a good idea that went bad because the specific scenario for which it was drawn up never materialized and because the speed advantage was not so great that it could not be neutralized through other issues (like boilers, algae etc).

[Simon_Jester]

A lower hit rate on the British ships would probably have meant fewer magazine explosions, though; you can't score a 'critical hit' on a target you can't hit in the first place. So... combination of factors- if German gunnery had been worse, the British ships' fragility would not have mattered.

All it takes is one lucky hit. QM was only hit five times, whereas Tiger was hit 18 times. Tiger survived, QM didn't. If it hadn't been for the changes after Dogger Bank QM might have destroyed Seydlitz with one of her first two hits - it started exactly the type of turret fire that was responsible for the British battleruiser losses.

Agreed- but you're still more likely to die of a turret fire when the enemy is hitting you 4% of the time than when they're hitting 2% of the time. It takes one lucky hit- it is not a foregone conclusion that the first (or tenth) hit you land is lucky. The more hits you land, the better your chances of getting lucky, so good gunnery counts.

In pre-dreadoughts, the ratio is totally unchanged, since they were outnumbered 4:3 in the first place.

Unlikely. In the event of heavy losses to the HSF, the predreadnoughts in the fleet would probably have suffered badly - one of them was lost at Jutland to a single torpedo hit in the night action. The RN, in contrast, didn't have a single predreadnought present.

Ah. I was simply imagining a purely abstract mathematical battle that sinks half the Royal Navy at 4:3 losses in the Germans' favor, not an actual Jutland reprise.

You're still right- we were talking about different things is all.

That last sentence didnt actually answer the statement. You suppose that if British Gunnery were better, they would have been ok.

Please stop randomly capitalizing Nouns that don't need capital letters.

But in reality, Germany gunnery was superior and their ships tougher. They were getting hits on target quicker than the British and there ships kept firing for longer even after getting hit. What this means is that the number of British ships to fire at will decrease at a faster rate than than German ships. The more this happens, the more focused German gunnery is on fewer targets. But the British numbers mean that atleast at first and for the rest of the battle, they can fire at every German ship and most of them twice over.

The German advantages in these areas were really fucking small, something I'm not quite sure you understand. You cannot model this as "German ships have twice as many hit points as British."

17 vs 32 Dreadies. Essentially equal armament. Possible durability towards the German side.

Translation: Germans lose badly if all ships from both sides show up. More realistically, only 50-60% of ships from either side are at the battle in the first place. The Germans through great effort brought all but one of their operating dreadnoughts to Jutland. The British brought whatever happened to be out of the shop at that moment: 28 out of 32. Germans lose, because 28 ships is more than 17.

5 vs 10 Battlecruisers. Again, comparable armament. Severe survivability advantage to the German side. Gunnery also favoring the German side. The British Battlecruisers can be nearly written off, due to the fact that they can easily explode to just a handful of solid hits while the German BCs can take a fairly brutal pounding and keep returning fire. And the Germans would be getting hits in sooner. In an exclusive BC fight, its easily possible for the British to outright lose 2 ships before a single German ship is unable to fire back, possibly three. But the British suffer worse due to loss of fire saturation.

British battlecruisers cannot be written off, as witness the Battle of the Dogger Bank where British and German battlecruiser forces clashed directly. The odds were 5:3, the British won.

In fact, considering German BC durability, count them as Dreadies.

Bullshit. German battlecruisers were not armed to the same scale as dreadnoughts. Eight 12" guns certainly don't "count" as equal to a ship with eight 13.5" guns, let alone eight 15" guns.

My suggestion is that the British lose out 2 to 1 for German ships sunk until it gets into the low teens which brings to German favor.

No, because the British enjoy 2:1 superiority in the relevant ship classes. 2:1 casualty ratios change nothing, even if they were possible, which they aren't. A few fluke hits might allow such a ratio among a few ships ("we killed 2 of the 50 ships you brought and you killed 1 of the 50 ships you brought.")

But the only way to get 2:1 advantage in a long-term pounding match is to have a secret weapon or tactic. The Germans had no such secret weapon. And no real plans to achieve an ambush that might have sunk 5-10 British capital ships without letting them shoot back.

If you really wanted to speculate on this, stop wanking about the Hochseeflotte's capital ships and INDESTRUCTABATTLECRUISERS. Start thinking about what happens if the Germans manage a brilliantly successful torpedo attack on the British battleline- which might be difficult but is at least remotely conceivable and not totally fucking nuts.

You saying that German ships dont have the range? And why couldnt they just sail through the channel?

Because they would get used for target practice by every coast defense gun from Dover to Penzance, shot full of torpedoes by every little boat the Royal Navy AND the French have, and probably blown up by mines while they're at it.

Do you just... not know how naval warfare works? O_o

Note: I only suggested the classic non-sub blockade as a response to the absurd suggestion of a complete British disaster and loss for no German casualties. Which would mean that the Germans could rotate ships in and out to seek out British surface anti uboat vessels or seek out the French fleet for a showdown. Which would mean that the Austians get to come into play.

The British didn't actively hunt U-boats in World War One, certainly not in the beginning. The resources weren't available and the anti-submarine warfare technology wasn't up to it.

[Thanas]

A few nitpicks:

The German advantages in these areas were really fucking small, something I'm not quite sure you understand. You cannot model this as "German ships have twice as many hit points as British."

I wouldn't count them as really small. I'd more accurately say that they were not enough to make up the difference in numbers.

British battlecruisers cannot be written off, as witness the Battle of the Dogger Bank where British and German battlecruiser forces clashed directly. The odds were 5:3, the British won.

Yeah but I don't think anybody would use Dogger Bank as an example of a straight fleet to fleet battle considering the tactical situation.

Bullshit. German battlecruisers were not armed to the same scale as dreadnoughts. Eight 12" guns certainly don't "count" as equal to a ship with eight 13.5" guns, let alone eight 15" guns.

Actually the German 12/50 gun had a penetration and damage output comparable to the British 13.5 iirc.

[atg]

You saying that German ships dont have the range? And why couldnt they just sail through the channel?


Note: I only suggested the classic non-sub blockade as a response to the absurd suggestion of a complete British disaster and loss for no German casualties. Which would mean that the Germans could rotate ships in and out to seek out British surface anti uboat vessels or seek out the French fleet for a showdown. Which would mean that the Austians get to come into play.

The suggestion of a total British catastrophe with zero German losses is outright insane. I dont support it, I was just responding to it.

My suggestion of such was deliberately exaggerated - but it highlights the point the High Seas Fleet cannot stop the British blockade even with such massive losses to the British. The German bases are too far away from where the blockade was in the Atlantic and the Greenland-Iceland-Faroes passages to stop the British cruiser fleet. The channel is mined and the British destroyer squadrons would love the chance to torpedo German dreadnoughts in the channel.

As for rotating ships out to combat British anti-uboat efforts or the French fleet... By my quick count even assuming my ridiculous scenario of total British losses for none German at Jutland, the British will still have 10 Battleships and Battlecruisers that weren't part of the battle or are at most a couple of months from being fully worked up (this could be sped up for the obvious reason) and 31 pre-dreadnoughts available for use. So the Germans would have to send out their whole battle fleet again to try to make any difference. That really shows the difference in size between the two navies.

[Sea Skimmer]

It also should be pointed out that Germany designed her BCs to be able to stand in the line of battle, with them carrying more armour than their British counterparts. As such, they fulfilled more the role Navies designed fast battleships for in the interwar period than the classical BC role of countering armored cruisers. Heck, they almost had 25% more armour than their British contemparies (the british had larger guns and were slightly faster).

German battlecruisers were designed for overseas service if they had any real point at all, which they did not. In reality they were built because the naval law allowed a strict number of battleships and large cruisers, and the wording was exploited to make those ships be battlecruisers. Tirpitz would have built all battleships given the choice. Indeed this is why Blucher was accepted so readily, with no more armor then a British I class, and serious thought was put into ships with 9.4in guns. Kept things cheaper for showing the flag. Had WW1 been delayed much longer some of the battlecruisers would have gone to the Pacific, much as Goben was showing the flag in the Med.

Since no British battlecruiser is known to have been hit in the machinery or magazines, and German main gun turrets were knocked out very readily, as were British ones, claiming any practical armor advantage gets kind of open to question.. It is well worth observing that the only capital ship at Jutland to sink from anything but a magazine explosion was German, Lutzow, and British magazine explosions cannot really be attributed to lack of armor. Certainly not to lack of vertical armor. Turret crowns were a bit weak, but not that much total weight on any ship anyway, and many German turrets were destroyed at Jutland. Seydlitz would have sank if she wasn't beached as well. None of the British ships that did not suffer explosions came even remotely close to sinking, while hit as many as fifteen times. This isn't even considering the fact that the Germans had a huge advantage from APC shells that actually worked right.

[Sea Skimmer]

The RN BCs were pretty extreme, though; fast battleships are arguably just more balanced battlecruisers with better propulsion technology. And not crazy zero-armour 18" guns stuff.

Funny enough as soon as the Germans saw Courageous and Glorious they began designing identical ships and reached an advanced stage of work on the plans for such vessels.

The lack of armor made a fair bit of sense within its own reality. Since few threat guns existed between 11in and 6in, and none on ships they were not 10 knots faster than, if you couldn't mount armor against the former gun, anything greater then the thickness for the later was a liability under the all or nothing principal. Ergo, they only mounted 3in armor against 6in shellfire. No ship with a comparable weapon could catch them without being either the same kind of tinclad, or very very large Small tube boilers threw a monkey wrench in this thinking around 1918 though. The main problem was finding anything for these ships to do, because while they did once fight German dreadnoughts, in general they seem rather overkill for wiping out the enemy light cruiser hoards.

Fisher always wanted a uniform fleet of fast battleships, he just lived with the reality that they could not be afforded in the required numbers and accepted splitting types.

Agreed- but you're still more likely to die of a turret fire when the enemy is hitting you 4% of the time than when they're hitting 2% of the time. It takes one lucky hit- it is not a foregone conclusion that the first (or tenth) hit you land is lucky. The more hits you land, the better your chances of getting lucky, so good gunnery counts.

On the other hand British shells were up to 2.8 times heavier then German ones making damage much greater, and the chances of defeating thinner armor with splinters much higher. The Germans were really lucky British AP shells were so bad, and that the British fired so much HE and CPC besides it, though such rounds inflicted major damage in some cases. On top of it the 15in gun was ballistically capable of piercing German deck armor at Jutland. No other gun at the battle could reasonably expect to do so at the ranges the action was fought at. It didn't actually happen because the British delay fuses generally didn't work right.

[Simon_Jester]

The German advantages in these areas were really fucking small, something I'm not quite sure you understand. You cannot model this as "German ships have twice as many hit points as British."

I wouldn't count them as really small. I'd more accurately say that they were not enough to make up the difference in numbers.

I'm pretty sure DH is thinking about this stuff in terms of RPG archetypes, because he's just too damn simplistic to be doing it any other way. He seems to have this image of a battle between one German ship and one British ship as predictably leading to the destruction of the British ship; it's not that simple because there are too many ways in which luck, chance, and complicating variables show up. So by the standards of the absurd casualty ratios he's looking for, yes the German edge in offensive or defensive quality was small to nonexistent. Not enough to matter.

British battlecruisers cannot be written off, as witness the Battle of the Dogger Bank where British and German battlecruiser forces clashed directly. The odds were 5:3, the British won.

Yeah but I don't think anybody would use Dogger Bank as an example of a straight fleet to fleet battle considering the tactical situation.

My point is that DH is trying to say "the battlecruisers' existence is of no importance" as a way of artificially narrowing the numerical weakness of the German fleet- to count the five German battlecruisers as dreadnoughts (giving the Germans 22), and the ten British battlecruisers as so much irrelevant hot air (giving the British only their 28 dreadnoughts present). And then assuming the Germans can achieve a 4:3 casualty ratio in dreadnought combat because OMG SUPERIOR.

Then again, with a name like "Dominarch's Hope," jerking off to conquest fantasies is kind of not a surprise.

Bullshit. German battlecruisers were not armed to the same scale as dreadnoughts. Eight 12" guns certainly don't "count" as equal to a ship with eight 13.5" guns, let alone eight 15" guns.

Actually the German 12/50 gun had a penetration and damage output comparable to the British 13.5 iirc.

Noted, and the tonnage is at least comparable between German BC and British dreadnought. The comparison isn't totally nuts, but... Christ, the way DH says it just makes it so obvious that he's trying to rewrite the battle to justify GLORIOUS GERMAN VICTORY.

Agreed- but you're still more likely to die of a turret fire when the enemy is hitting you 4% of the time than when they're hitting 2% of the time. It takes one lucky hit- it is not a foregone conclusion that the first (or tenth) hit you land is lucky. The more hits you land, the better your chances of getting lucky, so good gunnery counts.

On the other hand British shells were up to 2.8 times heavier then German ones making damage much greater, and the chances of defeating thinner armor with splinters much higher. The Germans were really lucky British AP shells were so bad, and that the British fired so much HE and CPC besides it, though such rounds inflicted major damage in some cases. On top of it the 15in gun was ballistically capable of piercing German deck armor at Jutland. No other gun at the battle could reasonably expect to do so at the ranges the action was fought at. It didn't actually happen because the British delay fuses generally didn't work right.

All true. The Hochseeflotte made an honorable showing given how outgunned they were, but that's about the best you can say. And as we seem to agree, the Germans profited from poor British gunnery, and from poor British fuzes; changing either of those would have made the outcome a lot worse for the Germans, and it was pretty bad as it was.

[Dominarch's Hope]

My arguement in regards to British BC units is that they were horrendously less survivable than their German equivalents.


However, my main question was answered anyway, since a cataclysmic Jutland in which both participants are incredibly reduced in numbers and are nearly equal in such still drastically favors the British due to new hulls already under construction.

Essentially, the straight up impossible would have to happen. That is the HSF cutting the Grand Fleet to a quarter strength while not taking anywhere close to half losses themselves.


In order for the HSF to turn the tide of the naval fight, the nigh impossible has to occur. And thus, a purely Jutland-derived ATL is almost as ASB as Sea Lion. Not quite, due to Sea Lion being plain fucking physically impossible.


The purpose that I posted this thread is concluded. Thank you. And calm down. And I request a thread lock.

[Thanas]

You don't get a lock.

[Dominarch's Hope]

*shrug* The only further purpose of this thread is faux intellectual masturbation. The conclusion has been reached.

[Simon_Jester]

However, my main question was answered anyway, since a cataclysmic Jutland in which both participants are incredibly reduced in numbers and are nearly equal in such still drastically favors the British due to new hulls already under construction.

Essentially, the straight up impossible would have to happen. That is the HSF cutting the Grand Fleet to a quarter strength while not taking anywhere close to half losses themselves.

In order for the HSF to turn the tide of the naval fight, the nigh impossible has to occur. And thus, a purely Jutland-derived ATL is almost as ASB as Sea Lion. Not quite, due to Sea Lion being plain fucking physically impossible.

The purpose that I posted this thread is concluded. Thank you. And calm down. And I request a thread lock.

This post actually significantly increased my respect for you, DH, because you're clearly thinking things through on a level I had feared you weren't.

I've seen too many people who obsess over GERMAN MIGHT VICTORY RAAARGH and don't understand what "badly outnumbered" means, or greatly overestimate some minor German advantage and ignore their enemies' advantages.

You not being one of these people is a refreshing thing.

And you have my apology for some of my more insulting remarks. They were made in haste and in error.

[Thanas]

*shrug* The only further purpose of this thread is faux intellectual masturbation. The conclusion has been reached.

I thank you not to trouble your mind with what may or may not be the purpose of threads.

[Dominarch's Hope]

However, my main question was answered anyway, since a cataclysmic Jutland in which both participants are incredibly reduced in numbers and are nearly equal in such still drastically favors the British due to new hulls already under construction.

Essentially, the straight up impossible would have to happen. That is the HSF cutting the Grand Fleet to a quarter strength while not taking anywhere close to half losses themselves.

In order for the HSF to turn the tide of the naval fight, the nigh impossible has to occur. And thus, a purely Jutland-derived ATL is almost as ASB as Sea Lion. Not quite, due to Sea Lion being plain fucking physically impossible.

The purpose that I posted this thread is concluded. Thank you. And calm down. And I request a thread lock.

This post actually significantly increased my respect for you, DH, because you're clearly thinking things through on a level I had feared you weren't.

I've seen too many people who obsess over GERMAN MIGHT VICTORY RAAARGH and don't understand what "badly outnumbered" means, or greatly overestimate some minor German advantage and ignore their enemies' advantages.

You not being one of these people is a refreshing thing.

And you have my apology for some of my more insulting remarks. They were made in haste and in error.

The idea came from perusing about 3 other forums where the discussions related to this got down to dragging up century old memoirs, and going down the usual list of British short comings etc.

In reality, short of a miracle, its possible that British losses could have been a hell of a lot worse, but once the Germans ran out of ammo and turned tail, it was over. In such a scenario, the HSF could be down to a handful of Dreadnoughts and no surviving BCs and trying to sail home with the British taking up to a dozen or so serious losses. Maybe. But it would have been no victory at all for the HSF. It would have been disastrously demoralizing and would have possibly have sped up the timetable for the Navy' revolt, shortening the war.

Even better, as a result in the removal of the HSF as a threat, the British could dedicate more assets to breaking open the Black Sea, potentially saving Russia.

[Sea Skimmer]

Its more likely that the German fleet would be nearly wiped out with minimal additional British losses then that both sides would take heavy losses. Numerical superiority stacks the deck rapidly in a battleship action as some vessels can fire unimpeded, while the opponents are being saturated, and the British had a huge advantage in light forces on top of it. This almost happened anyway, when the main bodies met between 1800 and 1900 hours the British absolutely pummeled the Germans while only two British dreadnoughts in the main body were hit at all. Germans turned away screaming and sent the 1st Scouting Group on its death ride for good reason.

British ships generally had a fair bit more ammunition per gun then the Germans as well, besides just so much more firepower.

[Dominarch's Hope]

*shrug*

It doesnt change the rest though. The strategic removal of the HSF as a thing means that the British can force open the Black Sea and get supplies to Russia. And it severely demoralizes the Germans.

[Sea Skimmer]

Opening up the black sea requires finding hundreds of thousands of troops for another crack at the Dardanelles. The allies were not willing to risk another mainly naval assault until late 1918, when plans for one began but never got anywhere, based around air power and new weapons and a lot of war experience. As it was the 1915 naval attack would have worked anyway, had it been allowed to just keep going. The status of the High Seas Fleet had nothing to do with any of this at all.

[Dominarch's Hope]

Ah, thought it had something to do with insufficient naval support.

[Sea Skimmer]

Loss a loss of nerves in the face of three ships being lost so suddenly. The British and French didn't even send out the best predreadnoughts they had, let alone all of them, 16, plus one dreadnought and one battlecruiser, IIRC out of more then 50 active predreadnoughts. Serious question was raised about why London suddenly cared so much about the loss of ships sent out to be expendable in the first place and much political screwery was involved in the change of command and abandonment of the naval attack; almost everyone present wanted to keep going and planned do so to the last minute.

In the end on the land side of things, once Serbia collapsed and Bulgaria entered the war the allied could either send men to Macedonia, or keep hammering at the Dardanelles. They didn't have the resources to do both, and choose Macedonia as more urgent in ordered to try to keep at least part of Serbia in the war, and Greece at least neutralized. Bulgaria entering the war also opened up a line of supply for the Turks, meaning the naval defenses improved a fair bit and the Turkish land situation vastly improved and generally the decision was made to concentrate on beating Germany on the western front anyway. That leads into the Somme. But yeah, it was really about men and artillery ammunition, not naval strength.

Some allied predreadnoughts were assigned to the Italians to watch the Austrians, and a moderate number were kept in the English Channel at times, until the submarine threat was judged too high, but in the middle of the war these ships actually had very little to do at all. Some escorted convoys in the Indian Ocean, some were on duty actually within the Suez canal (no subs!) to guard against the Turks but this didn't even come close to using them all up. However the sub threat could be licked for coastal operations by the inventive means of simply deploying miles of drift nets around the operating areas. This is how all the monitors attacking the Flanders were kept safe, even though the things could barely steer and did 6-7 knots.

[Stark]

The Dardanelles assault seems to be another of those battles pop history just simplifies into oblivion; some of the stuff I've read suggests the bombardments were very effective and they engaged and destroyed many or most of the forts planned. They'd sent crap ships because of the mine threat anyway.

[Dominarch's Hope]

Learn something new everyday. *moar shruggin*

[Sea Skimmer]

The Dardanelles assault seems to be another of those battles pop history just simplifies into oblivion; some of the stuff I've read suggests the bombardments were very effective and they engaged and destroyed many or most of the forts planned. They'd sent crap ships because of the mine threat anyway.

Actual damage from naval gunfire was not very extensive, never is with shore bombardments like this, but it was fairly effective at silencing batteries. The basic issue was, if the gunfire could not actually force the bombarding ships to break off the action, then defeat of the shore batteries was almost inevitable. They would at best run out of ammunition, or the bombarding ships would progressively close the range until they could be effective. The only Turkish hope was preventing the minesweepers from clearing the mines, and while they beat off trawler sweepers crewed by civilians who panicked from fairly light losses, the renewed attack was going to have all naval crews drawn from the predreadnought crews, and an additional number of destroyers fitted as sweepers which could sweep against the current. The trawlers actually had to steam past the mines, deploy sweeps, and then sweep back towards the allied fleet because of the strong current flowing out of the Black Sea. This is the main reason why sweeping went so slowly and the pace of the attacks seems so slow, it was. Odds of the allies running out of ammunition or trawlers were rather slim overall. One attempt to sweep at night failed completely, but it was totally unsupported.

The only forts actually destroyed were the ones at the mouth of the Dardanelles, which were silenced in the earliest attacks, and then stormed by small parties of British and French marines who completely demolished them. One of the narrows forts had a magazine blown up which appeared to destroy the work, but actually didn't. It did silence it for a long time. The forts at the mouth forts much weaker then the ones at the narrows though, basically a pushover for any serious attack. As I recall the only modern heavy guns were a pair of 9.4in weapons; while the strongest narrows battery had five fourteen inch guns, if somewhat dated in design. The Turkish ammunition was old too, major weapons, making penetration of the main armor of most of the predreadnoughts unlikely even at fairly short ranges. Casualties on the predradnoughts from shellfire were basically in the dozens, not per ship but in total. The worst damage was one of the French ones caught on fire. The considerable majority of Turkish weapons were from the 1880s and 1890s, making them more outdated then the predreadnoughts in the assault, and most were only of intermediate caliber or smaller.

Crap ships were sent because of the mine threat, but also because the allies had large stocks of ammunition and spare guns for the older ships which was not so true of newer ones, even if they could be spared. However Queen Elizabeth and Inflexible were sent too, and while QE was not to be allowed in the narrows until they were clear, Inflexible took part in the main attacks. Both were on hand to ensure that Goben would be destroyed should she attempt to flee. Interestingly QE later attacked the forts firing over Gallipoli from the ocean side in one of the first uses of air spotting naval gunfire ever. She was effective, but retreated when a Turkish predreadnought engaged her firing back over the landmass with land spotters.

[Ziggy Stardust]

And why couldnt they just sail through the channel?

Look at the difficulties the British Navy had in penetrating the Dardanelles to break into the Sea of Marmara, against a relatively inferior (and poorly armed/supplied) opponent. The German Navy would have to accomplish what the British could not, but against a decidedly superior opponent. It would be almost impossible to accomplish the task. Hell, there is a reason the Channel dash by the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau during WW2 was considered such a miraculous and unprecedented feat.