L A N D A X n W A T E R 
February 24, 1916- 
Ha'; Germany any other possible sea counter-stroke 
open to lior ? The simplest and most ob%-ions would be 
ti) strike (^nt and defeat the Grand Fleet. Is this possible 
t D Germany to-day ? \Nill it ever be po?^sible ? There 
have not been wanting those who would make us believe 
that the danger is a real one. Mr. Hurd is determined 
that we shall not forget that Germany's resources in 
ship building are " almost, if not quite, equal to our own." 
" If we had worked our hardest in this country since 
the opening of war and Gennany had done the same, 
we could not have maintained the margin of superiority 
that we possessed when the war opened. That is one fact. 
Germanv, moreover, would have been gaining on sea in 
ships which the lessons of the war had shown to be of 
the greatest military value." 
Of course, if (iermany can build ships as fast as we 
can, and botli build as fast as possible, it is obvious 
that our percentage superiority rruist decline. But it 
may be consoling to remind ourselves of what that per- 
centage s\iperiority was. We began in the North Sea 
with 24 capital ships to 19, a difYcreuce of five— about 
2/1 per cent. In the Mediterranean we had Admiral 
Milne's three battle cruisers, from which the Goebcn 
escaped, and one battle crvtiser was not commissioned. 
Since those days, as Mr. Churchill told us in November 
of that year, we should have been able to add 15 new- 
ships to Germany's three ; and presumably Australia has 
becoinc available for the main theatre of war. Of ships 
built and building in August, 1914, then, if there had been 
no losses on cither side, we should have the 24 Dread- 
noughts in commission at the Spithead Review, plus five 
plus 15, or 44 ships toGermany's 22. The margin is obviously 
enormous, especiallv when it is remembered that behind 
the British fleet stands the French fleet of capital ships, 
entirely without obvious employment at the present 
moment. It is still more striking when we remernbcr 
that nine of our ships carr\ 15-inch guns, two 14-inch 
guns, 17. 13.5-inch guns, and 17, 12-inch guns. Against 
these, Germany lias 15 armed with 12-inch guns, and seven 
svith ii-inch. The gun strength must be something 
like three to one. 
17-inch Gun Controversy. 
The point of Mr. Kurd's warning, is an echo of the 
17-inch gun controversy. When he says Germany is 
" gaining " on us, he cannot mean that Germany will 
have built more new ships, but that while in ships of 
pre-war design we have a superiority, in the new type 
the numbers would be more likely to be equal. Every- 
thing then seems to depend upon the lessons of the war 
and the use which each side has made of them. The 
main lesson of the war has surely been the higher hitting 
efticicncy of the bigger gun. The Falkland Islands really 
taught us nothing new on this, because no one has ever 
doubted that a 12-inch gun really must be \-astly superior 
to an 8-inch. But the Dogger Bank might have taught 
the Germans that their old theory that 11 inch and 12-inch 
guns would be as effective as 12-inch and 13.5s., was 
utterly fallacious. Their theory was wrong, because this 
imderestimated the range at which actions could be 
fought. We may also, it seems, assume that a lesson was 
learned at the Dardanelles, and one as obvious to the 
Germans as to ourselves. The Queen Elizabeth could not, 
of course, destroy and take the Narrows forts, but the 
testimony that her guns were more effective, because 
more accurate, than any others, is both general and 
widely known. By the end of either January or of 
March, 1915, then," the new lesson of the war may be 
said to have become clear. It was that there was a 
material advantage in increasing the cahbre of the guns. 
Is this the lesson which Mr. Hurd has in mind ? The 
matter is of considerable interest because in the spring of 
1914 there was a very general impression that the Gcs- 
mans had already then resolved on putting 15-inch guns 
into the four ships of the " Ersatz Worth " class, then in 
contemplation. But if, instead of proceeding with their 
15-inch programme, they have, " profiting by the lesson 
of the war," gone to 17-inch, it is clear that they cannot 
have made this departure before the Do.gger Bank fight, 
for until then no conclusive evidence of the bigger gun's 
superiority over the already very big gun was available. 
\\'hile if Germany waited until April for evidence of the 
suoerioritv of the monster gun, then she cannot have begun 
her plans for a 17-inch gun until very much later. In 
either case, it will be long before one is seen afloat. But 
in either escnt, as it would take at least thirty months 
to design and make and build new guns and mountings 
and ships to carry such guns, we arc not likely to sec 
17-inch guns afloat for another eighteen or twenty 
months. But, if GermanV began in August, 1914, with 
the deteriuination to build 17-inch gun ships, it would be 
a diftercnt matter. 
The advantages of the big gun in naval war arc 
briefly these : — 
(i) At long range it is more uniform in its shooting. 
This arises largely from the fact that its initial velocity 
is lower. In guns of the same calibre, those of the higher 
velocity are less accurate than those of the lower. 
(2) Heavier shells maintain their momentum longer 
than lighter shells. The greater the range the greater 
the danger space. Consequently an error in range which 
would be fatal to lighter guns hitting r^ight not be fatal 
to the heavier gun doing so. 
(3) The larger shell makes a splash in the water, 
which is much greater both in height and in volume than 
the lighter shell. It is therefore easier to see this splash 
at a great distance, and so it is easier in the first instance 
to find, and afterwards to recover when lost, the range at 
which the gun will hit. 
(4) Finally, the heavier shell delivers a more smashing 
blow, and as it can carry a far greater blasting charge, its 
destructive charge is very much greater. 
The public discussion of the 17-inch gun shows that 
there is some misapprehension on points i and 2 above. 
The point to bear in mind is this : In choosing a gun for 
long range fire we want the ma.\imum velocity combined 
with the maximum uniformity of shooting at the desired 
distance. Diagram I shows how three shells of different 
weights and starting at different velocities lose their speed. 
Timiqe^fOOqydi. lOOOOj^ds. ISDOOj/df- SOCWjds. 
30001 1 ■ 
2S001 
feet 
/>er 
second' 
2000' 
iSOO'r 
lOOOV 
\2S00. 
\/eet 
I 
SOO'^ 
klosicfVebcitifin&soii.pT^a:^!^ hi/to! Vdjd^Joa^persec. 
B . " . &70U>. . . „ 29S0fi:,. . 
C 870li. .. . „ 2100ft.. . 
V - n ,17^011) „ „ „ 2300ft. . 
(A) is the velocity curve of the i:\merican 5-inch gun, 
which it will be seen, starts at 3,000 feet a second, falls to 
1,700 feet a second at 3,000 yards ; to 1,100 feet at 6,000 
yards, and to just over 900 feet at 9,000. The weight of 
the 5-inch shell is 50 lbs. 
(B) is the American 12-inch gun with a muzzle velocity 
of 2,950 feet, and firing an 870-lbs. shell. This gun loses 
400 feet velocity in the first 3,000 yards ; 300 feet in the 
next 3,000 yards ; 250 feet inthe next 3,000. 
(C) is a gun of the same cahbre firing the same shell, 
with a muzzle velocity of 2,100 feet only. This gun loses 
less of its velocity because it starts slower. These three 
instances show iis that the lighter the shell the greater 
the drop in velocity, the higher the velocity the greater 
the loss of velocity ; the heavier the shell the greater the 
maintenance of velocity. 
(D) is a conjectured cur\-e for a 15-inch gun, which 
we will assume to start with a velocity of 2,300 feet, and 
to fire a projectile of about 1,750 lbs. 'Such a shell might 
lose less speed initially than any of the other three and 
12 
