Why display tag pagination doesn't use partial list?

You have to use external pagination feature. First, specify in html tag that you're using external pagination. And create an object implements org.displaytag.pagination.PaginatedList. Finally, you have to implement the DAO which makes actually query for 15 rows only and returns PaginatedList.

1) Your jsp will look like this

<display:table name="command" sort="external" partialList="true" size="${command.fullListSize}" pagesize="${command.objectsPerPage}">
  <display:column property="name" title="name"/>
  ...
</display:table>

Note that it specified the sort is external.

2) org.displaytag.pagination.PaginatedList implementation.

public class PaginatedListImpl<T> implements PaginatedList{
  private int fullListSize;
  private int objectsPerPage;
  private int pageNumber;
  private String searchId;
  private String sortCriterion;
  private SortOrderEnum sortDirection;
  private List<T> list;

//getters and setters
...
}

3) DAO Implementation sample using hibernate. You can do it with JDBC or anything but make sure you're making the right query to get 15 rows in proper order and return PaginatedListImpl object.

@SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
public PaginatedListImpl<T> getPaginatedList(PaginatedListImpl paginatedList) {
  int pageNum = paginatedList.getPageNumber();

  final int objectsPerPage = paginatedList.getObjectsPerPage();
  final int firstResult = objectsPerPage * pageNum;
  String sortOrderCriterion = pagiantedList.getSortOrderCriterion();
  String sortOrder = paginatedList.getSortOrder

  String className = type.getName().substring(type.getName().lastIndexOf(".") + 1);
  final StringBuilder fromClause = new StringBuilder("from " + className + " " + alias);
  String orderByClause = new StringBuilder(" order by ").append(sortCriterion).append(" ").append(sortDirection);

  final String hql = new StringBuilder().append(fromClause).append(orderClause).toString();
  List<T> resultList = getHibernateTemplate().executeFind(new HibernateCallback() {
  public Object doInHibernate(Session session) throws HibernateException, SQLException {
    return session.createQuery(hql)
      .setFirstResult(firstResult)
      .setMaxResults(objectsPerPage)
      .list();
    }
  });
  Long count = (Long)getHibernateTemplate().execute(new HibernateCallback() {           
    public Object doInHibernate(Session session) throws HibernateException, SQLException {
      return session.createQuery("select count(*) " +  fromClause).uniqueResult();
    }
  });
  paginatedList.setFullListSize(count.intValue());
  paginatedList.setList(resultList);
  paginatedList.setPageNumber(pageNum+1);
  paginatedList.setObjectsPerPage(objectsPerPage);
  return paginatedList;
}

Displaytag sends it’s pagination and sorting data using parameters that start with “d-”. So quick solution can be to check if request contains something starting with "d-",if yes then dont execute your query again.