Dogger Bank comes too late to allow the historical eighteen-month development and distribution cycle before Jutland, so the point of divergence has to come earlier. Heligoland Bight and the Falklands offer no German capital ship whose armour damage Britain could inspect. Evidence from Goeben by September 1914 would leave roughly twenty-one months before Jutland. The preferred scenario leaves Troubridge's original force, including Indomitable, Indefatigable, five cruisers, and eight destroyers, in position to intercept Goeben during her Mediterranean escape. Goeben's nominal speed was close to that of the British battlecruisers and depended on coal and machinery condition, so a damaging pursuit remains plausible without assuming an easy British victory. If the battlecruiser then sought refuge in a Greek harbour, British inspectors could examine the damage and use the physical evidence to challenge existing manufacturers' tests. Physical damage on Goeben is a more politically plausible trigger for expensive reform than a voluntary peacetime admission that the shell system had failed.
Chapter · 38:00-1:00:31
A damaged Goeben could reveal the shell problem
Follow the proposed 1914 divergence: Goeben is damaged and forced into a Greek port, giving Britain evidence that its shells have failed against modern German armour.