spout ing 100 feot up in the air, whose position 
relationship to the target can easily be detected 
from the ship's fighting tops. A projectile that 
misses a fort may be 500 yards short, and seem 
from the ship to be a hit. It may be 500 
yards over and appear to be exactly where 
it is wanted — ^namely, just over the parapet. 
You can find the range of a ship by spot- 
ting from the masthead, because tlie column 
of water is so plainly visible. But, against 
a fort, all spotting, to be efi'ective, must be done 
from some point at a distance from the firing ship. 
Where a second ship can stand off, at any angle 
greater than 30 degrees from the line of fire aitd 
closer to the target, the second ship can spot for the 
first. The recent attaclcs on all the Turkish forts 
except those at Sedd-el-Bahr and Kum Kale were 
iueiTective because there was sea room here for 
spotting ships almost at right angles to the line of 
fire — the ideal position — ^while, once in the Dar- 
danelles, the Straits are not wide enough to permit 
an advance ship to spot for the otters. And aero- 
planes are not a satisfactory substitute. At best 
an aeroplane can help one ship only. If the 
troops can seize good observation positions oa 'he 
hills above the forts, it should not be long before a 
bombardment of greatly improved accuracy is 
brought to bear upon them. 
But, even with such positions, there will still 
be considerable difficulties. It would, for instance, 
be a mistake to suppose that the guns I have 
enumerated could ever be brought simultaneously 
to bear upon the same target. Guns of separate 
ships cannot be controlled together in groups as 
the guns of a battery can be on land. At sea, where 
it can very seldom happen that more than three 
ships desire to concentrate on a single target, the 
difficulty of spotting independently for each unit 
ship is very great, but not insuperable. The 
Germans use an ingenious device for simplifying 
this procedure. The spotting officer has a press 
button under his hand, which is started the 
moment the salvo is firrd. This controls a timing 
element, which is set tv Lhe number of seconds the 
projectiles composing the salvo should take to 
carry to the range set upon the sights. Half a 
second before the end of this interval a striker 
within the device is brought sharply against a loud 
gong. The salvo of the spotter's ship, therefore, 
should strike the target or the water while the 
gong is still sounding. If several ships are engag- 
ing the same target, the spotter ignores every salvo 
except the one that coincides with the gong. But 
this method could not, of course, be employed un- 
less the spotter were in the firing ship itself 
It is, of course, a commonplace that in- 
creased fire effect may be got either by a greater 
accuracy of a small number of pieces or by the 
concentration of a larger number of pieces on the 
same target. If the arrangements for the correc- 
tion of fire are sufficiently good, and if the ships 
can without danger come within such range that 
a high average of hits may be expected, then, so 
powerful is the battery of even the smallest of the 
ships, no fort can be expected to survive very long. 
But, if concentration and accuracy can be com- 
bined together, the rapidity with which the desired 
effect is obtained will naturally be much greater. 
The difficulty in correcting the fire of a mul- 
titude of ships is, it may be added, two-fold, 
because each salvo must be identified as coming 
from a particular ship, and then that ship be in- 
formed of the correction. There is apparently no 
escape from the necessity of having a separate 
spotter for each ship. If the spotter is in an 
independent position, the obstacles in the way of 
this double task are considerable. Neither identifi- 
cation nor communicating the correction will be 
easy. And it is not only the concentration of many 
ships on a single target that creates the difficulty. 
It will be almost as great when several ships en- 
gage in a simultaneous attack on contiguous forts. 
The final solution can take one of two forms. 
Either concentration will be abandoned alto- 
gether, or two or three ships may be combined 
against a single fort, and the forts selected as 
targets be taken from different groups. Experi- 
ence will show the better way, and no fleet has had 
such experience of long-range fire as that now at 
the Dardanelles. Indeed, this experience appears 
to be the only asset which the attempt to force the 
Straits by ships alone has yielded. 
In the official report there was nothing to say 
whether the gunfire which Queen Elizabeth and 
Triumfh directed on to Maidos was indirect — that 
is, over the land, or direct up the Straits from some 
spot above Kephez Point. The only detail given 
was that Queen Elizabeth had sunk a transport 
after the third round. And to hit a transport by 
indirect fire seemed almost impossible. Subse- 
quent unofficial reports, however, speak as if all 
the shooting had been indirect. Should this prove 
true, an amazing thing has been done. 
A BRUSH IN THE 
NORTH SEA. 
THE past week has been remarkable for a 
vigorous revival of the submarine attacks 
on British and neutral shipping, and the 
first exchange of shots that has occurred 
in the North Sea for a hundred days. This last 
was a small affair of outposts, and is chiefly 
interesting for the fact that the Germans had 
actually rescued a British officer and two men 
from a sunken trawler; but only to confine 
them below in their own boat, and to keep them 
there while that boat was being attacked and 
finally sunk by the British destroj'^ers. On Monday 
the Admiralty had published our having saved 
over 40 German officers and men and their having 
failed to save any of ours, and on Tuesday added 
the evidence of the disgraceful proceedings I have 
recounted. Both announcements have been made 
without comment, nor is comment required. Apart 
from the brutality of the German conduct, the en- 
coimter seems to be without any particular 
strategic importance. By their own account, the 
German fleet, well protected from any sudden 
attack by a screen of Zeppelins and destroyers, 
had made a parade the week before in the 
North Sea, and then boasted of it as if there 
were no British warships of any kind in that 
area. The torpedo-boat captains, perhaps taking 
the German Admiralty at its word, pushed a little 
too far on Saturday, with the result we know. But 
neither the parade nor the adventure of the 
torpedo-boats gives rise to any hope that Germany 
will put the command of the sea in dispute by 
coming out in force to attack Sir John Jellicoe. 
Nor will the submarine attacks on neutrals alter 
radically, though they may embitter, a situation 
ah'eady complicated enough. 
13* 
