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.
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Famous quotes containing the words order and/or battle:
“However fiercely opposed one may be to the present order, an old respect for the idea of order itself often prevents people from distinguishing between order and those who stand for order, and leads them in practise to respect individuals under the pretext of respecting order itself.”
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)
“If you are willing to inconvenience yourself in the name of discipline, the battle is half over. Leave Grandma’s early if the children are acting impossible. Depart the ballpark in the sixth inning if you’ve warned the kids and their behavior is still poor. If we do something like this once, our kids will remember it for a long time.”
—Fred G. Gosman (20th century)