At 3.30 Beatty and Hipper discovered each other's battle cruiser forces. Hipper turned about and headed on a southerly course to lead the British toward the advancing main fleet. Beatty also turned, forming his battle cruisers on a line of bearing to clear the smoke, and the two forces approached each other on converging courses as indicated in the diagram.
At this point it is worth while to compare the two battle cruiser forces:[1]
| BRITISH | GERMAN | |||||||
| Name | Armor | Displace- ment | Guns | Name | Armor | Displace- ment | Guns | |
| Queen Mary | 9″ | 26,350 | 8 13.5″ | Lützow | 13″ | 26,180 | 8 12″ | |
| Lion | 9″ | 26,350 | 8 13.5″ | Derfflinger | 13″ | 26,180 | 8 12″ | |
| Tiger | 9″ | 28,500 | 8 13.5″ | Seydlitz | 11″ | 24,610 | 10 11″ | |
| Princess Royal | 9″ | 28,350 | 8 13.5″ | Moltke | 11″ | 22,640 | 10 11″ | |
| Indefatigable | 8″ | 18,800 | 8 12″ | VonderTann | 10″ | 19,100 | 11″ | |
| New Zealand | 8″ | 18,800 | 8 12″ | |||||
| 145,150 | 118,710 | |||||||
[Footnote 1: Table from Lieut. Comdr. H. H. Frost, U. S. N., U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, Nov., 1919, p. 850.]
A glance shows the superiority of the British in guns and the German superiority in armor. The British had six ships to the German five, and if the four new battleships of Evan-Thomas's division could be effectively brought into action, the British superiority in force would be reckoned as considerably more than two to one. These battleships had 13" armor, eight 15" guns each, and a speed of 25 knots. They were the most powerful ships afloat.
In speed, Beatty had a marked advantage. He could make 29 knots with all six of his cruisers and 32 knots with his four best,—Queen Mary, Tiger, Lion, and Princess Royal. Hipper's squadron could make but 28 knots, though the Lützow and Derfflinger were probably capable of 30.
At 3.48 British and German battle cruisers opened fire. According to Beatty's report the range at this moment was 18,500 yards. Beatty then turned to starboard, assuming a course nearly parallel to that of Hipper. Almost immediately, three minutes after the first salvo, the Lion, the Tiger, and the Princess Royal were hit by shells. In these opening minutes the fire of the Germans seems to have been fast and astonishingly accurate. The Lion was hit repeatedly, and at four o'clock the roof of one of her turrets was blown off. It is said that the presence of mind and heroic self-sacrifice of an officer saved the ship from the fate that subsequently overwhelmed two of her consorts. By this time the range had decreased to 16,000 yards (British reckoning) and Beatty shifted his course more to the south to confuse the enemy's fire control. Apparently this move did not succeed in its purpose for at 4.06 a salvo struck the Indefatigable on a line with her after turret, and exploded a magazine. As she staggered out of column and began sinking, another salvo smashed into her forward decks and she rolled over and sank like a stone.
About this time the Fifth Battle Squadron came into action, but it was not able to do effective service. The range was extreme, about 20,000 yards, and being some distance astern of the battle cruisers, on account of its inferior speed, it had to contend with the battle smoke of the squadron ahead as well as the gradually thickening atmospheric conditions. In addition the Germans frequently laid smoke screens and zigzagged. Evan-Thomas's division never saw more than two enemy ships at a time.
The shift of course taken by Beatty at four o'clock, accompanied possibly by a corresponding shift of Hipper, opened the range so far in a few minutes that fire slackened on both sides. Beatty then swung to port in order to close to effective range. At 4.15 twelve of his destroyers, acting on the general order to attack when conditions were favorable, dashed out toward the German line. At the same instant German destroyers, to the number of fifteen accompanied by the light cruiser Regensburg, advanced toward the British line, both forces maneuvering to get on the bows of the opposing battle cruisers. For this purpose the British flotilla was better placed because their battle cruisers were well ahead of the Germans. The German destroyers, therefore, concentrated their efforts on the battleship division, which turned away to avoid the torpedoes. In numbers the advantage lay with the Germans, and a fiercely contested action took place between the lines conducted with superb gallantry on both sides. The Germans succeeded in breaking up the British attack at a cost of two destroyers. Two of the British destroyers also were rendered unmanageable and sank later when the High Seas Fleet arrived on the scene.