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Originally Posted by johndallman
It happened like this . . .
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Excellent summary. Thank you.
Jellicoe was suffering from two special problems. Bridge-to-bridge message time was about 20+ minutes. There was no voice radio, so all messages had to be drafted coded into Morse, re-coded into the naval cipher, sent, and the process had to be reversed. Also, he was ill-served by his subordinates who often did NOT send key information and often did not do very well when they tried.
Example: Jellicoe message out: "Where is the enemy battle fleet?" (A fairly key datum, I would think.)
Answer (from Adm. Evan-Thomas of the 5th Battle Squadron): "I am engaging the enemy." ["Which enemy? Are they the enemy battleships -- or all or none of them? Where are they? Heck, where are you?")
Repeat this dozens of times and you can gauge Jellicoe's problem.
So part of Operations & Tactics (Strategy if you are not using Operations skill) is figuring how to make the right decision when you're in the fog of war.