LAND AND W A T E R 
March 16, 1916. 
tliat Mr. fhiircliill took office, you will find that it was to 
liis ailministralion that we owe tlic abolition of the 
onlv ()lh<"fr and diparlmi-nt in thr N'a\y conipi'tt'nt to 
acKisc or diivct mt-thods of gunnery adeijuate for war. 
From IQ08 to k^ij the Inspectorship of Target 
Practice had been effective in giving shape, and to some 
extent a voice to the alarm, anxiety and indignation 
of the Navy at the manner in which gunnery administra- 
tion boxed the compass of conllicting policies. With the 
suppression of the ofiice there came administrative jieace 
^and technical chaos. How complete that chaos was 
is shown by our inability to escape from the hampering 
traditions of the defensive theory on which the Dread- 
nought policy was built. The theory was that ships 
should be armed with guns that outranged the enemy, 
and tUted with engines that out-ran hini. Then all risk 
of coming under his tire could be avoided. The effect caii 
be seen in the actions we have fought. 
The Falklands Action. 
At the l-'alkland Islands there was a classic example 
of defensi\-e gunnery tactics. It was one of thos-' quite 
exceptional cases in which they were quite rightly em- 
ployed. There was a clear six hours of daylight after 
the enemy had been brought within fighting range ; the 
strength of the attacking squadron was o\erwhelming ; 
there was no safe harbour to which the enemj' could run ; 
the British .\dmiral was many thousands of miles from a 
])ort where he could refit if his ships were injured ; and 
his ships represented about 6 per cent, of our total force 
in capital \-essels. If then he could destroy the enemy 
without risking any injury to his ships, he was clearly 
bound to do so. The battle began about i o'clock, the 
Scharnhorst sank at a quarter past four, and the Gneisenau 
about two hours afterwards. For three hours and a 
quarter then each of the (ierman ships was imder fire 
from one battle cruiser, for two hours a single German 
ship was under fire from both. If we assume, first, that 
twenty-five 12-inch shells would sufilice to destroy such 
cruisers as the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau, and 
secondly, that at no time did our battle cruisers have 
more than six guns in action, it follows that the rate 
of hitting would be one hit per gun every 75 minutes. 
The mean range was about 12,000 yards. 
Ranging Problems. 
In the second attack on the Koenigsberg in the 
Kufigi river, the t^vo six-inch guns of Severn destroyed 
the Koenigsberg in about 15 minutes after finding the 
correct elevation. The range here was just under 11,000 
yards. If we assume that these guns could destroy the 
Koenigsberg with 25 hits, we have a rate of hitting of 
one hit per gun every 72 seconds. At 12,000 yards a 
.Scharnhorst is a far larger target than a Koenigsberg at 
11,000, and in flatness of trajectory a 12-inch gun at the 
greater range has a vast advantage over a 6-inch gun at 
the lesser. What is it that accounts for the gunnery 
efiiciency at the Falkland Islands being one sixtieth of 
that at the Kufigi ? The Severn was firing for all intents 
and purposes from a stationary and motionless ship and 
at a stationary target. Invincible and Inflexible were 
travelling from 22 to 25 knots, were constantly under 
helm, and were engaging fast and manoeuvring targets. 
In gunlaying the difficulties in the latter case may have 
been slightly greater. But the sea was calm. It was 
then the unsohed difficulties created by the movements 
of the firing ship and target that explain the difference 
in the standard of efficiencj' achieved. 
But unless these difficulties were solved, how was it 
ever hoped that a method of fire control adecjuate for 
battle could be evolved ? Was it supposed that we 
could always engage on defensive terms, that we should 
always have time, always opponents of inferior speed 
and armament to fight ? Should not the elimination of 
movement from the gunnery problem have been the be- 
all and end-all of gunnery policy, if its essentially offen- 
sive character had been understood ? The intensity of 
hitting at the Falkland Islands was 98.4 per cent, inferior 
10 that at the Kufigi. If ten per cent of the errors 
had been eliminated, the efficiency would have been 
increased by six hundred per cent. ! 
Now. throughout the years 1904 to 1014, there were 
many distinguished sailors serving as Lords of the 
Admiralty at Whitehall. Until the end of igio there was 
virtually a naval autocracy. There \\a; certainly no 
purely civil autocracy unfil Mr. Churchill took over a 
year later. How are we' to explain blindness so aston- 
ishing as this in two such crucial matters — the oniission 
of a defensive for the submarine, and of an offensive 
for the gun ? The answer seems to me to lie in this. 
Wliile it was not until Mr. Churchill came to the Admir- 
altv that technical decisions were habitually made by a 
First Lord on his own responsibility, there had. e\('r since 
jiower was transferred from the ISoard as a whole to its 
chief, been a complete civilian ascendancy in naval 
administration. From the moment the actual executive 
power passed from a body of seamen appointed by tlu^ 
Prime Minister into the hands of a civilian head of a 
department, naval policy had to be reduced to such 
provision, such measures, such preparation for war. as 
lie would realise to be essential. Lay judgment thus 
became the criterion of all naval action, and this in turn 
resulted in only those naval officers attaining infiuence 
and power at Whitehall whoso habit of mind and character 
ajipealed to the layman. I think it is this that ex])lains 
how it is that Lord Fisher's reputation is so much greater 
amongst politicians, journalists and landsmen than it is 
amongst sailors. His reforms and <hanges were exactly 
the things that appealed to untechnical minds. E\'cry- 
body was impressed by ships that were larger, costlier 
and carried more powerful guns than previotis ships. But 
it never occurred to any of -these lay enthusiasts to ask 
how they were to be used ! The critics of the Fisher 
regime never made any headway, because they had either 
to appeal for right doctrine to naval history, with which 
neither the public press nor the politicians were very well 
acquainted, or to such matters as the technique of weapons, 
which no one outside the Navy understood at all. 
Enemy Shortcomings. 
It i> a fortunate circumstance that apparently no 
other Admiralty was in the least degree in ailvance of ours 
in the understanding of war, and it is to this that we nnist 
attribute a state of things, to this extent satisfactory, 
that whatever the defects in our preparations, in both 
material or methods, the shortcomings of our enemy 
seem in point of fact to have been greater yet. 
We have now been at war for twenty months, and 
no doubt a hundred weaknesses in our arrangements 
have been set right, and so far as the others can be reme- 
died, the /-fgtwie which Mr. Balfour has set-up is the best 
guarantee we can have that all that is still possible will be 
done. He has at any rate created machinery both for 
finding out what the fleet knows and wishes, and for 
carrying it out where it is feasible. And it is the great 
advantage of the Churchill incursion that the attack on 
this regime, which if not ideal, is at least the best we can 
get, will now cease. 
Mr. Balfour, having established a sane system, can 
of course strengthen it. when and as it becomes desirable 
and convenient to make an interchange between White- 
hall and the fleet. One new appointment of great im- 
portance has recently been made. Admiral de Chair has 
been taken from the conduct to the direction of the 
blockade. To those who know more of the fleet than of 
the Foreign Office, there is something humorous in so 
brilliant an officer being anybody's assistant. It is a 
great thing, however, that a man fresh from the practical 
problem should bring a war-trained brain to the Govern- 
ment's assistance in this vital matter. It would, of course, 
be easy to suggest other transferences from the fleet to 
Whitehall that would strengthen the Board and other 
departments there to a very notable degree. But it is 
to be remembered that Mr. Balfour has to choose between 
strengthening his Board and weakening the command at 
sea. No change that has yet been suggested would give him 
a better chief adviser than he has, and his chief adviser, 
in turn, cannot be better served by any change in the 
headship of the War staff. And compared with these 
two, no other offices are of very crucial moment. 
Arthir Pollen. 
Aids to the use of Mafs (Jarrold and Sons, is. net) is a 
very useful little handbook giving details of English, French, 
and German military maps, in a way that will be found ex- 
plicit and eminently serviceable by junior officers and 
n.c.o.'s. engaged in topograpliical-work. The comparative 
tables of terms are especially to be commended, as is the 
chapter on conventional signs. 
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