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 set a course south at seventeen knots, faster than the German ships could manage, which should put him in a position to locate and overtake the German fleet at daylight. The shortest route of 100 miles was via Horns Reef to the SSE, passing north of the minefields laid by both sides in the Heligoland Bight. It was this route which Scheer chose despite having to pass the British fleet. Although it was not Jellicoe's best guess at Scheer's actions, he anticipated that the destroyers and cruisers spread out around his fleet would give warning should the Germans take this