If you're looking for information on the Battle at Jutland, this is not the video for you. If you're looking for an overly macho professor to spend 30 minutes using boxing analogies to complain about military complacency, then enjoy.

I'm not sure the Beatty Thomas-Hughes relationship is the best example of an RN that was overly controlled by the top. The night before Trafalgar, Nelson, in person, explained his plans to his band of brothers. Beatty couldn't be bothered to meet with Thomas-Hughes, despite them both being in the same bay for two months. Conflict after action management reduces system complexity, but water-cooler sociability greases the system. Beatty and Seymour are a bad example of anything except leadership failures. (You can't tell me that every one of those battlecruisers uninstalled vital safety features without Beatty or his command staff knowing. That's not how human systems operate. Beatty knew the interlocks were disabled, because he required it be done.) A better example might be when Churchill basically murdered Admiral Craddock through Admiralty orders and mischief before Coronel. Or the Admiralty interfering with the chase of SMS Goebens. Or the buffoonery that went on with "leadership" of intelligence in Room 40.

Watching for my second time it feels very relevant right now.

Almost one minute talking about Jutland.

He has a point. During the cold war, the Navy ran some games to test out their model of carrier based battle groups. The commander that did best was the one that broke up his unit completely to get it to where he was supposed to go. Broken up, it wasn't spotted by satelite.

Fair Warning: I kept waiting, but there's very little here about the battle off Jutland.

Not sure that the example of turning the 5th Battle Squadron is a very good one. Beatty's signalling, by his own admission after the war, was appalling but he never bothered to sort it out, perhaps because he liked his Flag Lieutenant. Surely this is an example of a poor commander rather than a system. Not that I would argue with his point that the navy went backward in the 19th century, gunnery gave way to cleaning the ship etc etc.

Surely the malaise in the USN occured a touch before the post war period? Honda Point Disaster is presumably a closer analogue to the HMSs Victoria/Camperdown collision.

I doubt if the fighting off Guadalcanal in Ironbottom Sound confirms the speaker's view of Admrial King's methods (or of the intelliegence of US Admirals until they got to grips with the war).

John Mearsheimer wrote Tragedy of Great Power Politics mentioned around 11:25 mark.

I think the best modern example of a Nelsonian admiral was Spruance. He would give very detailed plans to all fleet commanders and captains, with contingency plans, so they knew the overall tactical or strategic goal if something unexpected occurred, so they could respond accordingly. This meant that Spruance would not have to micromanage, and the fleet could operate in his absence. One time, his flagship was bombed and the fleet continued to fight effectively without Spruance around to give commands; Spruance was later found assisting the fire teams to put out a fire. Contrast this to Halsey who eschewed detailed plans, and consequently his subcommanders often did not know how to respond, most notably when Taffy 5 was attacked.

This accent is worth. No one d have ever guessed wäre hes from.

I have to disagree. Look at communications, command and situational awareness capabilities. Ships had one, at most two, wireless telegraphs. Communications had to be manually encrypted and decrypted from Morse code. There were range and weather limitations. There was no high-resolution surface search radar or Link 11, E-2 or a CIC to manage situational awareness. All Jellicoe had was an admiral's bridge with a staff marking locations, bearings and speed of formation based on visual reports from subordinate commanders. Visual situational awareness was repeatedly degraded by fog, weather and smoke. There was no Blue Force Tracker, not even night recognition lights. The only ship keeping a plot evidently was the Grand Fleet flagship. A more flexible command arrangement would have failed just as badly or worse than Battlecruiser Squadron. Beatty never kept Jellicoe in the loop or provided systematic reports that elucidated the situation. Nor did many of the light cruiser squadrons that were operating semi-independently. Reports would often give the bearing and speed of an enemy formation but not its relationship or the relationship and position of the reporting element from the flagship. British commanders were not trained for more flexible tactics nor was there time once the war started for Jellicoe to make a change. He fully recognized that fact, but he was never given the time or resources to make changes until AFTER Jutland. The Fifth Division (the Fast Wing) got detached from Battlecruiser Squadron as it couldn't keep up and then found itself in between the Grand Fleet and the High Seas Fleet. The whole thing could have broken down like Friday the Thirteenth off Savo Island in Ironbottom Sound, with British capital ships shooting at each other. As it was, Jellicoe brought the battleships into a position across the German path, shook out into a battle line and then crossed the German "T". And did it twice. It's easy to criticize in hindsight, but Jellicoe really was the man who could lose the war in an afternoon. Nelson could have taken heavy losses and still driven the French-Spanish fleet back into Cadiz. There was still two other fleets in or near the Channel. The British could have had 50% of Nelson's ships go down and still be able to put to sea a Navy with twice as many operational ships of the line, with better captains and crews than the French and Spanish. Nelson could take risks within the technological-tactical framework of early 19th century naval combat. Jellicoe could not.

Why does someone giving a lecture on navel strategy feel the need to spend 2 minutes explaining the term “lee”?

Sry to say - there is no 'Battle of Jutland'. The British lost, in men and/ or ships, and since when does the losing side name a battle..? It is the 'Battle of Skagerrak', as the Germans titled it.