26 
DEFENCE OF A COAST FORTRESS. 
Guard boats. 
Guns. 
Many people think that guard-boats would be very effective at 
night. They may possibly be, under some conditions, but under most 
they would seriously impede the foregoing defences. So far no means 
have been devised for communication, with certainty and rapidity, 
with either guard boats or torpedo boats, and the result of sending 
out guard boats would be that enormously increased difficulty and 
responsibility would be entailed on those responsible for each of the 
other means of defence. The enemy’s torpedo boats would slip in, or 
the friendly guard boats would be fired at. Everything that cannot 
make itself unmistakably known at night must be ruthlessly sunk. 
In these days of fast torpedo boats there is no time for consideration. 
For the present I do not, therefore, include guard boats in the 
defences of a Coast Fortress. 
Taking the means of defence of a Coast Fortress in the order 
named, we first come to guns. 
Very many mistakes are made in the placing of these engines, and 
a vast expense is gone to, often quite unnecessarily, in the matter of 
emplacements. We see here, at Shoeburyness, the very heaviest guns, 
quite as an ordinary thing, sent down from the Arsenal at Woolwich 
on a Monday, fired on the Wednesday, and returned to Woolwich 
within the week. And we also see less heavy guns sanctioned and 
issued for Coast Fortresses, taking two years and upwards to fire, 
costing vast sums for elaborate emplacements, and being then pro¬ 
nounced by those most deeply interested to be in the wrong place. 
Between these two extremes there should be a mean. 
Guns intended to engage battle-ships should, whenever possible, be 
placed on high sites, that is to say, from 100 feet upwards. When at 
a good height no expensive disappearing system is necessary or even 
advisable. All such systems tend to slowness of fire, difficulty and 
uncertainty of working and vast expense, which would be better saved 
to be applied elsewhere in the multiplication of guns. 
On heights less protection is needed, the guns cannot be so easily 
rushed by landing parties, their practice is better, their target is always 
larger, while they are difficult objects for a ship to hit. 
Guns should be dispersed within reasonable limits. They should 
never be mounted singly, that is to say, one nature of gun should 
never be far from another of the same kind if only for the reason that 
if any accident happens to a single gun its ammunition is useless, and 
that it is far more expensive in proportion to work. But there are 
other objections to the single gun. 
By dispersion it is not intended that each gun should be placed far 
from its fellow, but the groups, and perhaps the guns, should be at 
least so far apart that fire directed at one could by no possibility 
damage or interfere with the fire of another group. 
Guns should be so placed as to have a reasonably large field of fire, 
because, with due care in ranging, their fire becomes more and more 
effective after the first few shots. 
They should command all water which permits of the passage of 
ships. 
When these conditions have been fulfilled their protection from an 
