LAND AND WATER 
October 9, 1915. 
In the destruction of the Koenitjsbeiy, have 
already been the subject of comment in these 
columns. But river gunboats A\ould be useless in 
such a bombardment as has been carried out 
against the Zeebrugge forts. They would not 
carry any guns larger than six inch and perhaps 
a small howitzer or two, and six-inch guns would 
be useless against the fortifications the Germans 
have erected for their 11- and 12-inch pieces on 
the Flemish coast, and the howitzer, even if it 
had the range, is not a gun that can be used with 
effect except from an absolutely steady platform. 
It must be assumed, then, that the monitors 
employed for bombarding the Belgian coast would 
have been vessels built si)ecially lor this purpose 
and carrying the kind of gun that would alone be 
of any use. The term monitor is generally em- 
ployed to describe a shallow-di-aft vessel of low 
speed, with a beam disproportionate to her length, 
so as to get the flotation, and armed with a single 
turret containing either one or two guns. If you 
are content to have a low speed, it is possible so 
to extend the sides of any ship as to make it mine 
and torpedo proof. It is a mere question of having 
two hulls — an interior, which constitutes the 
vessel proper, and an outer, against which under- 
water weapons are to expend themselves. What 
the torpedo-net could do effectively against the 
low-speed torpedo of ten years ago,"this extended 
outer hull can do against the 50-knot torpedo of 
to-day. To embody this protection in large ships 
Avould convert them into comparatively immobile 
floating forts, useless for most operations of war. 
But in a bombardment, if it cannot be interfered 
with by the battle squadrons of the enemy, only a 
floating fort is required. Monitors then meet 
the requirements of the situation exactly. They 
can be built for small expense and with great 
rapidity. They can be made for all practical 
purposes proof against torpedoes and mines, 
. while their shallow draft makes it exceedingly 
improbable that they will be hit by the first or 
Avill run into the second. There is, of course, no 
limit whatever to the size and power of guns that 
monitors can be made to carry, and this without 
in any material manner increasing the target that 
they expose to hostile fire. We haAC seen how in 
the encounter between the Koenigsherg the 
Severn and the Mersey, although the fire was 
apparently of equal accuracy on both sides, the 
Koenigsherg made no hits and was herself 
destroyed, largely because the target she pre- 
sented was four or five times that of either of her 
opponents. At great ranges the monitor is a tiny 
mark, and with the methods of fire control in 
use such bombardments must be made from a 
great range, because the guns can only keep the 
range, and therefore keep their fire within a 
reasonably small area, if the ships are stationary. 
But even with the ships stationary, the 
problem of controlling a large fleet of monitors 
must be very intricate. So intricate, indeed, is 
the business that greater reliance must be placed 
on the volume of fire for effect than on the expecta- 
tion ot exact accuracy of any portion of it It 
IS a nice question in military and financial 
economics, whether to aim at obtaining results by 
accuracy or by volume. Personally, I Lve always 
t^^^cfifficult?™^^- ^^' ' ^- ^-- ^-- b^-^ 
This bombardment of the Belgian coast may 
hav« . mjhtary result fa? beyond that 
obtained by the mere destruction of the Zeebrugge 
forts, the submarine stations, &c. With an 
offensive movement on a large scale directed 
towards piercing the German line in France, the 
constant threat of a turning stroke from the North 
must make it impossible for the Germans to de- 
plete that area of troops. And, indeed, it is evi- 
dent from the news that reaches us from Holland 
that the Germans are very much alive to the 
danger of the coast bombardment being followed 
up by landings on a grand scale. But we may be 
sure that Germany's sea strategy, no less than her 
land strategy, has from the first been compelled to 
take into account the menace of a British invasion 
either on the coast between Denmark and Holland 
or in Belgian territory. That menace has become 
very much more real with the events of the last 
few weeks. 
well have a 
10 
IN THE GULF OF RIGA. 
Curiously enough, the conditions in the West 
have been almost exactly reproduced in the East. 
There the German left wing rests on the 
coast a few miles Avest of Riga, just as in 
the East the right wing rests on the sea at 
Nieuport. And just as Admiral Bacon has 
been bombarding the Belgian end of the 
German line, so some unnamed Russian ship 
has, from inside the Gulf of Riga, been 
attacking the invaders' left wing. To enable us 
to bombard the Belgian coast at a range compara- 
tively safe from the German guns, we have had 
to build special ships with guns so mounted that 
they can be given an extreme elevation. But for 
many years past the Russians, like most other 
Continental Powers, have mounted all their 
battleships' guns to elevate as high as 30 degrees. 
Any of the old battleships, therefore, are available 
tor this purpose. The ship employed then may 
have been either the Slava, which distinguished 
herself so much in these waters in July and 
August, or, indeed, any other of the older vessels 
wHom It IS customary to describe as obsolete 
from the published account one gathers that two 
officers were killed on the occasion— Captains 
Viazensky and Svinin. Calling them both 
captains is probably due to a mistranslation The 
rank of commander and lieutenant-commander in 
the English Navy are generally described in 
foreign navies as " frigate captain " and " cor- 
vette captain," our post captain being rendered 
by captain of a vessel." If the Captain Svinin 
who IS said to have fallen is the commander of 
that rank, who was the principal gunnery officer 
to the mam Russian Fleet, the loss to the Russian 
Navj' can hardly be exaggerated. In no particu- 
lar ot naval training has the Russian Fleet made 
greater advance since the Japanese war than in 
guu-laying and fire control, and in fire control the 
progress, which has been quite remarkable, has 
been largely due to Commander Svinin and his 
predecessor Captain Kedroff. There is another 
officer of this rank of the same name on the 
Russian Navy List, so that it may not be the 
gunnery Svmin who has been killed. On the other 
hand, there are very good reasons why a gunnery 
commander should be temporarily on board a ship 
engaged m new experiments in bombardment, and 
no reason why an additional commander who Is 
not a specialist should be there. For the moment 
