A Different Grand Fleet
Part Two
By Adrian Davis
June 2011

Just before the outbreak of the Great War, the Admiralty produced what we would now call a force structure, covering 1914 – 1917. Part one of this series covered four major changes: the disbandment of the battlecruiser force; the reorganisation of the First Fleet as new dreadnoughts were commissioned; the creation of a Mediterranean Fleet; and, finally, a reorganisation of the cruiser forces. This part looks at the other Fleets – the Second and Third. These fleets were composed of older ships which did not have a full complement but had nucleus crews, which would be brought up to strength in time of war. The ships forming these fleets were distributed around Great Britain in places such as Chatham (the Nore), Devonport and Portland.

Ships of the II Fleet

The II Fleet was composed of the more modern pre-dreadnoughts – note for example HMS Lord Nelson was assigned, despite being commissioned later than HMS Dreadnought. It is likely, though not shown in the paper, that II Fleet was to be organised in two Battle Squadrons – the Fifth and Sixth. The table shows the composition of the fleet from the archive source, with my interpretation of the allocation between the two battle squadrons (note this groups ships of the same class together).

The II Fleet also had a number of cruisers attached. These were organised into two cruiser squadrons, attached to the battle squadrons and a “Patrols” component. The following table shows the composition of the various cruiser components in 1916 and further confirms the organisation into two battle squadrons.

Note that the Admiralty refers to “4 Sentinel” in the Patrols. Actually, only two Sentinel class were built: there were three other classes, the Adventure, Forward and Pathfinder (two cruisers each), which were very similar and all four classes were collectively referred as the “Sentinel class.” One problem is that the source doesn’t state which four would be placed in the Second Fleet.

The ships of the Second Fleet would form the Channel Fleet in time of war.

Ships of the III Fleet

This was very much the “reserve” fleet, composed of the oldest pre-dreadnoughts and with most of the assigned ships having nucleus crews. It is likely that three Battle Squadrons would have been created in the Fleet; in this case, the Seventh, Eighth and Ninth. Once again, this table shows the composition of the fleet from the archive source, with my interpretation of the allocation between the two battle squadrons. The four named ships were assigned to the Humber in the source documentation.

After July 1915, it becomes increasingly difficult to assign ships to the battle squadrons. My interpretation is that the Majestic class would have been relegated to guard ship or similar duties, with the more modem pre-dreadnoughts forming the battle squadrons. Interestingly, the cruiser deployments for 1916, shown in the table below, only name two battle squadrons.

Note: Originally six Talbot class were proposed, but this was revised upwards to 10 in the source documentation on account of the proposed workload
* also known as Eclipse class

The reserve commission cruisers would have formed several Cruiser Squadrons, probably numbered Ninth though to Twelfth. These would have been assigned to the Northern and Southern Patrols, amongst other duties. Again, the source doesn’t state which of the eight Sentinels would have been placed in reserve.

Finally, it’s also worth mentioning that the Edgar class cruisers (HMS Edgar, Hawke, Endymion, Royal Arthur, Gibraltar, Grafton, St. George, Theseus and Crescent) were to be placed in Material Reserve (and thus available for recommissioning in time of war).

Scenario suggestions

The revised fleets can be added to any of the Jutlandscenarios – Dogger Bank, Jutland itself or Helgoland Blight – and a number of Mediterranean scenarios as well. You could also use Part 1 and Part 2 as the revised global order of battle in Cruiser Warfare.

Sources

This article is drawn from ADM 1/8383/179, Battle and Cruiser Squadrons – Programme, 8th July 1914. As stated in the text, this paper doesn’t assign the pre-dreadnoughts to battle squadrons, so I’ve made a few educated guesses and used secondary sources such as Conway’s All The World’s Fighting Ships 1856 – 1905 and 1906 – 1921.

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