British Fire Control Systems at Jutland

British Fire Control Systems at Jutland

The Battle of Jutland continues to be an interesting and controversial topic, in part because of technical arguments surrounding British gunnery and the effectiveness of its fire control.

To understand (too strong a word... "to take an informed position on?") the gunnery results of Jutland, one has to consider many factors. This article is going to address just one of these factors: the equipment each British ship carried into battle.

Caveats and Sources

Airtight and detailed documentation of this stuff is thin. While there is good documentation overall, much is dated significantly distant from the battle, and this introduces the possibility that upgrades or alterations occurred between the battle and the document's creation (regardless of which came first). Of course, the creators of most such documents were human, and some would even confess as much when pressed.

This page will have fuzzy edges and may contain errors. However, it should be substantially correct in aggregate form.

The Run to the South

Column headings:

RF9

number of 9-ft RFs

RF15

number of 15-ft RFs

FCT

type of Dreyer Fire Control Table

Ship	FCT	Dir	FTP	RF9	RF15
Lion	III	yes	yes
Princess Royal	III	yes	yes
Queen Mary	II	yes	yes
New Zealand	none?	yes	yes
Indefatigable	none??	yes	yes
Barham	IV*	yes	yes
Valiant	IV*	yes	yes
Warspite	IV*	yes	yes
Malaya	IV*	yes	yes

Dreyer Tables and their Use

Nearly all, but not all capital ships carried a Dreyer table.

On 24 September, Jellicoe asked his commanders to furnish more detail on their fire control during the battle, specifically asking that the paper range plots from the Dreyer tables be included with this report. Such material would comprise the most informative trove of forensic data by which we could evaluate British equipment and their use of it. However,

All ships did not furnish plots, transmission station records or other notes : reasons are explained in some of the following letters.

[TO BE CONTINUED - TONE]

See Also

• Battle of Jutland
• Dreyer Fire Control Table

Bibliography

• Template:BibUKDreyerTableHandbook1918
• Template:BibUKDreyerTableMarkIVRoyalOak1916
• Template:BibUKTechnicalHistoryComparisonArgoAndDreyer
• Template:BibUKRangeTablesForHMFleet1918
• Template:BibUKSightManual1916
• Template:BibUKPamphletDreyerTurretTable1930