Order of Battle
Not all the Grand Fleet was available to put to sea at any one time, because ships required maintenance and repairs. For a list of ships which were present at the Battle of Jutland in May 1916 see the article, Order of battle at Jutland. A number of others missed the battle for one reason or another. Actual strength of the fleet varied through the war as new ships were built and others were sunk, but the numbers steadily increased as the war progressed and the margin of superiority over the German fleet progressed with it. This led to a slowly less cautious approach to the war as the strength increased. The fleet was at its weakest at the start of the war, when it was also least experienced at this sort of warfare and a number of minor but embarrassing losses occurred because of this inexperience. After the United States entered the war, United States Battleship Division Nine was attached to the Grand Fleet as the Sixth Battle Squadron, adding four, and later five, dreadnought battleships.
Read more about this topic: Grand Fleet
Famous quotes containing the words order of, order and/or battle:
“Out of the slimy mud of words, out of the sleet and hail of verbal imprecisions,
Approximate thoughts and feelings, words that have taken the place of thoughts and feelings,
There springs the perfect order of speech, and the beauty of incantation.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Dule and wae for the order sent our lads to the Border;
The English, for ance, by guile won the day:
The Flowers of the Forest, that foucht aye the foremost,
The prime o’ our land, are cauld in the clay.”
—Jean Elliot (1727–1805)
“Women’s battle for financial equality has barely been joined, much less won. Society still traditionally assigns to woman the role of money-handler rather than money-maker, and our assigned specialty is far more likely to be home economics than financial economics.”
—Paula Nelson (b. 1945)