Order of battle at Jutland Order of battle at Jutland This is the complete order of battle for the Battle of Jutland fought between 31 May and 1 June 1916. The battle involved 250 warships of the British and German navies, and, in terms of combined tonnage of vessels engaged, was the largest naval battle in history. The Grand Fleet was the main body of the British Home Fleets in 1916, based at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands and Invergordon on the Cromarty Firth in Scotland. The Grand Fleet had a total of 32 Dreadnought and Super-Dreadnought battleships available to use by the time
Battle of Jutland him west of the mouth of the Skagerrak off the coast of Jutland and wait for the Germans to appear or for their intentions to become clear. The planned position would give him the widest range of responses to likely German moves. The principle of concentration of force was fundamental to the fleet tactics of this time (as in earlier periods). Tactical doctrine called for a fleet approaching battle to be in a compact formation of parallel columns, allowing relatively easy manoeuvring, and giving shortened sight lines within the formation, which simplified the passing of the signals necessary for command