The closing thought experiment considers Scheer taking the High Seas Fleet at the outbreak of war rather than in 1916. Earlier British global commitments and a less mature reinforcement pipeline might have made several battlecruiser losses more consequential than they were by Jutland. Revenge-class battleships and the battlecruisers Renown and Repulse later gave the Royal Navy replacements and reinforcements that were not yet available in 1914. The counterfactual also asks how Scheer would have incorporated submarines when their numbers and availability differed from the later war.
Notable Point · 1:28:47-1:31:51
What if Scheer had commanded from 1914?
The closing thought experiment asks whether Scheer could have exploited Britain's thinner early-war deployment and greater vulnerability to battlecruiser losses.