10 
LAND & WATER 
' September 14, 1916 
American Naval Criticisms 
By Arthur Pollen 
ON August 17th Land & Water published the 
text of a report on the Battle of Jutland ad- 
dressed to the American Secretary of the Navy, 
by Captain \V. S. Sims— probably the most dis- 
tinguished olhcer of his standing in the United States 
Service. Apart altogether from the reputation of the 
writer, the document is interesting as the first critique 
of the engagement that has come to us from a member of 
a neutral navy. Coming from Captain Sims, a recognised 
authority on naval gunnery, the report is of peculiar 
interest, so that the validity of his criticisms are well 
worth discussion. 
The Battle Cruisers 
Briefly, his points are as follows : Assuming, he says, 
that the initial position of the fleets was as I gave them 
in Land & Water of June 8th, it was quite easy for the 
British force to have concentrated and then struck with 
the whole of its power. Had it done so the German 
fleet must either have submitted to the humiliation of 
flight or to destruction. Either would have suited the 
British book, and had there been a battle there would 
have been no occasion to use battle cruisers for any except 
their proper role. The contention of British apologists 
that the battle cruisers were rightly sacrificed in an en- 
gagement with ships far more powerful than themselves 
in order to bring on a fleet action is an imsound argument, 
because the military situation did not demand one. 
Great Britain's control of the sea was absolute and must 
ha\'c remained so whether the action was fought or not. 
'Jhere is no reason to suppose that the Germans wanted 
a decisive action ; their only object was to trap and pound 
the battle cruisers fleet, and this they got the chance of 
doing. But they only got it because Sir David Beatty 
gave them the opportunity, fully knowing that he was 
risking his squadron in sending them against battleships, 
no doubt thinking he had a just excuse for the sacrifice. 
There is nothing in all this, he says, to justify any argu- 
ment against battle cruisers, whose real role is to drive 
in the scouting line to support destroyer attacks, and so 
forth. It is no more an argument against battle cruisers 
that three were lost when they were improperly used in 
fighting battleships, than it would be an argument against 
destroyers, had these in the same action been sent un- 
supported against battleships in broad daylight and half 
of them been destroyed. 
This, it seems to me, is a fair summary of Captain Sims's 
argument. 
But it would be hardly fair to Captain Sims to enter on 
this discussion without first making two points clear to 
the reader. To begin w-ith, the report was written 
before the despatches were pubUshed. The writer then 
had as a basis of his criticism nothing but newspaper 
reports and these contradictory. He was thus left free 
to adopt whichever version of the facts suited him best. 
Next, he had extremely good reasons for choosing a par- 
ticular version. Indeed, it would not be going too fai- to 
say that he was compelled to accept the one he chose. 
For the occasion of the report was an official enquiry ask- 
ing Captain Sims whether the joss of these cruisers had 
caused him to modify his urgent request to the House 
Committee to include some units of this type in the new 
American programme. It is evident that" the opponents 
of battle cruisers had made a great point— in the Ameri- 
can Press particularly— that it was the thinness of their 
armour that accounted for the British loss of ships that 
had cost six million pounds sterling, and took with them 
to the bottom the best part of three thousand men. 
Captain Sims then, not only had to defend the battle 
cruiser as a type, but he had to defend it from the accusa- 
tion of having failed as a warship in action. As he 
remained as strong an advocate of battle cruisers as ever, 
he, having rival versions of the facts, chose the one that 
was thrust upon his notice and gave him the easiest reply. 
What could have been more convenient for his case than 
to brush the whole accusation aside and explain the 
loss of these cruisers away by the one argument that 
would be convincing to his auditors ? He virtually says, 
therefore, that Sir David Beatty, in bringing lightly pro- 
tected battle cruisers into action against more hea\-ily 
gunned and better protected battleships, was putting the 
fiattle cruisers to a use for which ships 01 this kind 
were not intended. > 
As everyone now knows, there is not a tittle of evidence 
to support this theory. The facts correctly stated in 
Land dt Water on June 8th make it altogether unten- 
able. None of the battle cruisers lost fell in an engage- 
ment with battleships. Indefatigable and Queen Mary 
sank in the course of the first phase of the action when 
Beatty, with his six battle cruisers, was engaging von 
Hipper with five. 
The action began first, between ships of a similar 
class; next, with the Britisli with a twent}' per cent, 
superiority in numbers. After the two ships were lost, 
the British were inferior by twenty per cent, in numbers, 
but in spite of this the British gun power, as measured 
by the weight of broadsides, remained the greater. Nor 
. was this all, for before Queen Mary sank the German 
fire had become slower and had depreciated altogether 
in accuracy. In addition to greater material force, then, 
it is certain that our guns were shooting at a higher rate 
and with far greater efficiency. To make the picture 
complete, let us also remember that the Fifth Battle 
Squadron was firing at von Hipper's rear with their 15-inch 
guns, though the range was too great for this fire to be very 
effective, .^s to two out of three of the battle cruisers, 
then, it is quite clear that they were not sunk through 
any indefensible exposure to ships with which they could 
not engage on an equalfty. 
Containment and Defeat 
Invincible was lost in rather different circumstances. 
She came into action, in company with Indomitable and 
Inflexible, some time after 6.21, while the Grand Fleet 
was still deploying to the north and Sir David Beatty was 
driving at full sp6ed due east to clear out of its way. His 
object was to get ahead of the German squadron and to 
thrown the leading ships into confusion so as to make Sir 
John Jellicoe's task easier. Precisely when he was 
wanted. Admiral Hood brought the Third Battle Squad- 
ron to reinforce the Vice-Admiral. The whole of the 
seven battle cruisers closed down on the German line 
to within 8,oon yards and, as shown in Sir David Beatty's 
despatch, crumpled it up. Here again the fire superiority 
was entirely on the English side. Invincible's salvoes 
were falling on the German ships and had turned one — 
Lutzow, which, admittedly, sank — clean out of the line. 
She was entirely unhurt herself till, just as in the case of 
her consorts, a chance shell hit her. It is not quite clear 
from the despatches whether it was possible that this 
shell was fired from a German battleship. But it looks 
as if three of von Hipper's battle cruisers were still' 
leading the line, and if this is so, it was more pi-obably a 
round from one of these that finished her. 
The point to remember is this. It so happened that 
three battle cruisers paid the penalty. It was extra- 
ordinary that it should have happened three times. 
But had the battleships been in as close action and 
under as effective fire, for the same period, it was 
a thing that might just as well have happened to any 
three of them as to these three lightly armoured 
ships, because the armour had nothing whatever to do 
with it. 
With the facts rightly viewed the whole of the Sims 
argument naturally tumbles down. But the report 
contains certain incidental arguments well worth ex- 
amination, apart from the merits of the case it was written 
to support. The most interesting of t?iese is the con- 
tention that we had no occasion on the 31st May to risk 
any ships in the endeavour to force an action in which 
