334 
BATTLE OF SANTIAGO. 
of a battery is:—tireat tliebaseof the foremost funnel of abattle-ship or armoured 
cruiser and the base of the funnel of an unarmoured cruiser—because there it is 
likely to do the greatest amount of damage. It possibly will cut the connections 
from the conning tower and burst in the battery or perhaps in the joints of the 
hydraulic pipes of the fore-turret in the case of the battle-ships and armoured 
cruisers, and in the unarmoured ship the engine room hatch is generally just abaft 
the after funnel, and that is where you are likely to do the most damage. Of 
course you can give orders to certain ships that, if possible, they are to fire 
armour-piercing projectiles at enemies ships covered with armour but generally 
the shell is most valuable as it is the thing that kills. I do not think I have 
anything more to say. I expect I have said too much already, but I must thank 
the lecturer for his interesting paper (applause). 
The Chairman :—Before I call upon Captain Orde Browne to reply, there 
was one question which it was hoped a naval officer would answer ; I do not 
think Commander Mark Kerr has dealt with it. The question was this. Sup¬ 
posing one ship can recognise another, can you get sufficient accuracy out of 
your firing when you are on board ship to make peculiar use of that knowledge ? 
Commander Kerr : —I had stopped talking because I thought probably other 
people were as tired of listening to me as I was of talking, and there are senior 
officers here of much greater experience than myself on the subject. I asked 
this very question of the Americans—what they did ? could they fire at certaiu 
places ? They said, no, it was impossible; that all they could expect their men 
to do was to fire when their sights came on but they could not distinguish one 
place from the other. I asked several officers this question, and they all said the 
same thing. When a man goes to shoot at a target, if you tell him to fire at a 
point five feet high, he is perfectly calm, and he stands there at the end of the 
battery and says “ yes sir ; yes sir ; ” but as the ship is always moving do you 
think he cares two straws as to the exact point to be aimed at P He pulls his 
trigger directly he sees his sight on, and I am perfectly certain that in an action, 
when men’s nerves are strung up more than at other times, they would do exactly 
the same thing. With regard to the letter from Sir Gferoge Clarke which was 
read it did not occur to me that the gallant officer implied any disrespect to naval 
gunners in the remarkshe made because I think it is what every naval officer knows, in 
his innermost heart, that, with a ship moving, the gunner will fire directly he 
sees his sight is on. With regard to the Spanish ships firing so high, as the 
lecturer pointed out, I think that arose in this way. When the Spanish began 
firing they were firing at 3,000 yards but when they were within 1,400 yards 
their guns were still sighted as for 3,000 yards. They forget to reduce their 
elevation, but one thing they did not forget, and that was to drink their coffee, 
because the cups were found empty on the tables down below (laughter and 
applause). 
Commander B. CuRREY,KoyalNavy :—Colonel Jocelyn and gentlemen : Ido not 
think you can fire at any individual part of the ship. It is very difficult to lay 
a gun on any particular spot, especially from low casemates. Then as to armour 
I think the question resolves itself more into whether you should put armour on 
to the ship, or have an armour deck only, and that of course depends upon 
whether naval constructors can build ships in that way. It is well known that 
the French ships which are armoured with a complete belt have not the same 
stability that our ships have and this is very apparent if the ship is damaged. 
Also it is known that you must have ships of greater size—greater tonnage to 
be able to carry the additional armour and maintain the other features. That is 
a very important matter for the naval architect and in a rough way presents 
some of his difficulties. Undoubtedly naval officers would much prefer ships 
which are sufficiently armoured to keep out all quickrfiring guns. If this can 
