THE INFLUENCE OF NATIONAL POLICIES ON SHIPS' DESIGN. 73 



But in our country to-day the bond and intercourse between the statesmen who 

 guide our national poHcies and the War and Navy Departments which may be called 

 upon to enforce those policies are neither as close as they are in other great powers 

 nor as they should be with us. 



DISCUSSION. 



Mr. R. H. Robinson, Member of Council: — I happened to be for eight years at one 

 end of the line that has to do with designing and building ships for the Navy at Washington, 

 and while my view is, perhaps, somewhat warped, I was not blind. Captain Rodgers refers 

 to the fact that our lack of ability resulted in the production of unsuitable types of ships. 

 I think there is something in what he says, but I do not think it is any more true of our 

 service than of any other service during the period of which he spoke. Somebody referred 

 to the French navy as a collection of naval samples, so I suppose the same criticism as made 

 here must have been applicable to that service. 



Captain Rodgers refers to Germany as apparently an example which should have been 

 followed. I have never been of the opinion that we knew it all, or that we could not learn 

 anything from Germany, but my experience in the Navy Department and at the War Col- 

 lege, where Captain Rodgers was President, led me to believe that Germany was largely held 

 up as an example because it Was probably the nation about which we knew the least. Their 

 results are very good, but just why they do things we do not know. They are very reticent 

 about their reasons, and therefore they are supposed to have very excellent reasons. 



The General Board is referred to as having a further duty, namely, to study and 

 report on the military characteristics desirable in the various types of ships which it rec- 

 ommends, following which is a definition of military characteristics. I think I am correct in 

 saying that at least three times while I was b the service I wrote and asked what a military 

 characteristic was, and never had any definition before, but have it here. I remember several 

 instances when the military characteristics were prescribed in the design of ships while I 

 was in the Navy Department, one of which stated that the vessel should be fitted with a No. 8 

 jeweler's lathe, which did not seem to me to be a very broad feature. 



It is quite the custom for the General Board to dictate the type of armor design, the 

 shape of the back of the armor plate, and the shape of the bow of ship, particularly under 

 water, etc. — it was very seldom made the way they dictated, but these features were almost 

 always included in the military characteristics. Such features as the vertical echelon arrange- 

 ment of turrets, and other things which are really based on military considerations, were 

 developed in the technical side of the department. I dare say that Mr. Linnard, Mr. Taylor, 

 and possibly the Chief Constructor and Admiral Bowles, probably remember many other in- 

 stances, both on one side or the other. 



I do not want to be considered as objecting to the general principles as formulated in 

 the paper, because I think they are very sound, but the manner in which they are sometimes 

 carried out is not quite according to what might be considered good practice. 



