Battle of Dogger Bank: The First Dreadnought Engagement, January 1915

2. Building the Battle Cruisers

23 Germany and Britain built a whole series of what were very fast dreadnoughts designed to scout enemy battle fleets and obtain advantage for their main bodies with speed and firepower. They were designed to take risks and escape while inflicting major punishment on adversaries. Both sides saw the battle cruiser as an evolution of the cruiser as fleet scout, as Beatty put it: “it is now accepted that there are two principal duties for the battle cruisers to perform that is (a) Supporting cruisers, (b) Acting as a fast division of a battle fleet.”1 Hipper for his part clearly understood and practiced these two when operating with the fleet; however, he had another mission, which was to operate independently as a lure for British forces which might be overwhelmed and thus allow defeat in detail for the British fleet. This latter was a function of the High Seas Fleet’s geographic position and strategic inferiority . Ultimately, the loss of either side’s battle cruisers would have been serious but not decisive. Only the loss of the dreadnought battleships, which were the ultimate measure of maritime power, would have been decisive. The British initiated the battle cruiser type and thus draw pride of place in this analysis. After that it is the German response, except for the Blücher, which is a case in its own right. The British TherehasbeenagreatdealofinkspilledaboutthebattlecruiserinWorld War I as the brainchild of the erratic visionary Admiral Jackie Fisher of the Royal Navy. Building the Battle Cruisers 2 24 Battle of Dogger Bank When the revolutionary battleship HMS Dreadnought was conceived , the Royal Navy decided that it would require a cruiser complement , thus the battle cruiser emerged. The principal designers and builders of the British battle cruiser fleet included a number of naval constructors, architects as well as several shipyards. There were three and a half classes of British battle cruiser at the time of Dogger Bank and all classes were represented. There were the Invincible and Indefati­ gable classes, which were too slow to keep up with the Lion class and the Tiger. Of the full war program, only two other battle cruisers, Repulse and Renown would join after Dogger Bank and before the war ended. In addition, three hybrid super-light cruisers of the Courageous class would also be commissioned. There is no doubt that the revolutionary Queen Elizabeth class were considered part of Beatty’s forces, but they were not battle cruisers perse , and were not present at Dogger Bank as they were either deployed elsewhere or just coming into service. The Queen Elizabeth class is important to the story of the battle cruiser or fast battleship type which is an integral part of any analysis of Dogger Bank. They were unique, as afterwardstheBritishrevertedtotheslowerheavilyarmoredR classand the lightly armored Renown and Courageous classes. ThekeyBritishpersonalityinthedramaoftheAnglo-Germannaval arms race, of which Dogger Bank was the first battle, was Admiral Sir John Fisher.2 Fisher was brought into the Royal Navy as the cadet of the last of Admiral Horatio Nelson’s captains, and as Fisher put it “curiously my first ship of war was the Victory, Nelson’s flagship. She had her sails bent in those days and was kept ready for sea with a regular crew.”3 Fisherultimatelywasresponsibleinlargepartforthenavyandthebattle cruisers which fought at Dogger Bank, including both their capabilities and limitations. By the time John Fisher became First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, he had decided what was right, what was wrong, and what needed improvement and had a course in mind as to how to bring the Royal Navy into the twentieth century. Like Tirpitz, he was a gunnery and torpedo man, both were pioneers in torpedo tactics and materiel. The principal difference between the two is the former was a reformer and the latter was a pioneer. Fisher also collected a brain-trust along the Building the Battle Cruisers 25 way to help him achieve his goals, although Sir David Beatty, the British battle cruiser commander at Dogger Bank was not one of those; Sir John Jellicoe, the Grand Fleet commander at the time of Dogger Bank, definitely was one of Fisher’s protégés. Jellicoe had many key assignments in his career including that of Third Sea Lord or Controller, which meant he played a critical part in constructing the ships Beatty led at Dogger Bank. In Jellicoe’s autobiographical notes, he observed that from the British perspective the key...