Battle of the Denmark Strait Beatty, likewise, felt he needed to engage German Admiral Franz Hipper's battlecruisers with his own forces instead of drawing the Germans toward Admiral John Jellicoe and the British Grand Fleet. Holland, like Beatty, possessed superiority in the number of heavy ships he possessed, yet he was encumbered by inferiority in fighting effectiveness of those units. Moreover, Holland's deployment of his units compared to Beatty's deployment at Jutland. Beatty and Holland both attacked while German units were well before the beam. As a result, the midships and after turrets of Beatty's ships could barely fire on the enemy; Holland's ships could
Night action at the Battle of Jutland following day in conditions to his advantage. His battleships were redeployed from their battle line into closed up night cruising formation, with the battlecruisers deployed to his south west to prevent Germans passing south, and destroyers deployed behind the main fleet to intercept Germans passing to the north. British ships had not trained for night action, but German ships had. The Germans had better searchlight control, using iris shutters which could rapidly switch on and off the light, star shell which could be fired over enemy ships to illuminate them without having to use a searchlight, which automatically presented a