10 
LAND & WATER 
January iS, 1917 
ihips." Some critics have found this statement too 
sweeping. The experiences of 1916, they remind us. 
seem to show that the lieavy ships of modern construction 
arc not destroyed by a single torpedo hit. Even quite 
hght cruisers n'lay ha\-c to be struck three or four times 
before they succumb, and it issignificent that, of the five 
capital ships admitted by both sides to have been sunk at 
Jutland, three were destroyed by chance hits from gims, 
one was sliattcred b\- "fifteen hits of our shells, 
and only one seemingly by torpedo attack. And it is 
improbable that it was a single torpedo that did the trick 
in her case. But the speaker did not say a single hit 
could be fatal. Given torpedoes used in shoals, ships 
at short range might be struck by several. 
The actual words used by Sir John are not perhaps 
intended to be taken quite literally. Certainly not as 
an exhaustive statement of the strategical and tactical 
principles. They are a general indication of the character 
of the problem, and of its nature there can now be no 
doubt. It is, indeed, as I have suggested in our last two 
issues, one of the main lessons of the past year. In 
normal conditions in the North Sea, our arrangements 
for using heavy guns in action have proved to be alto- 
gether unsuitable. That they do not suffice to overcome 
the difficulties of low visibility is now once more officially 
admitted. But the evidence is pretty strong that they 
arc also unequal to the strain when a manoeuvring ship 
has to engage a manoeuvring target — a state of things 
that must be taken to be just as normal, when an artillery 
action is complicated by the torpedo's intervention, as 
bad seeing. There is no doubt, then, that it is the 
torpedo that by setting an outer limit to the range, and 
by enforcing conditions — namely manoeuvres — which 
fire control cannot overcome, has revolutionised the 
employment of fleets for their primary function — to wit , 
the destruction of the enemy's fleet by guns. And this 
gives rise to a very natural question. Are we to be con- 
tent with this state of things ? Are we really to resign 
ourselves to the Na\-y being able to do everything 
— but fight ? Is is possible to overcome bad seeing 
by better optical appliances ? Can the difficulties 
of change of range be eliminated by more scientific 
instrumental aids to fire control ? Clearly, if we cannot 
do these things, there is no third to the following alter- 
natives. Either all naval actions are doomed to be 
inconclusive, or victory can only be sought by deliber- 
ately jeopardising every unit of the fleet — subjecting 
them, that is to say, to a risk which will leave the decision, 
not with superior leadership, skill, or material power, 
but solely with chance. How can a fighting force possibly 
reconcile itself with such impotent conclusions ? 
The Need of Staff Methods 
It cannot be in the inherent nature of things that the 
weapon that has the longest reach, that can be used with 
the greatest rapidity and, theoretically, at any rate, be 
employed in almost all conditions with perfect accuracy, 
and so effect any fenemy's destruction in a few minutes 
only, should become absolutely powerless for its only 
purpose. It seems to me just as contrary to right reason 
to say that a modern battle fleet cannot win by its 
artillery in the North Sea, as to say that it is impossible 
to overcome and abolish the menace of submarine attack 
on our sea supplies. The mind revolts from the theory 
that any problem is insoluble. But it is equally con- 
trary to right reason to suppose that we can restore to the 
gun its proper pre-eminence in battle, or re-establish, 
for the protection of our sea supplies, the ascendancy of 
surface craft over under-water craft, unless both problems 
are engaged by the right intellectual instruments, 
working on the right method. Unless the elements of 
each problem are disentangled from a thousand confusing 
circumstances, so that eacli can be stated with precision : 
unless the action each element demands is ascertained by 
analysis and experiment : and. finally, unless a combined 
operation is so arrived at for dealing with the combined 
difficulties — which at present make either our gunnery 
ineffective or leave our merchantmen defenceless — ' 
we shall not reach the situation we desire — namely, that 
in which, if we get the chance, our fleet can win supremacy, 
in which our sea communications shall be reasonably 
secure; Neither of these problems can be met by slap- 
dash remedies. Both call for concerted action. It 
must be taken on the widest basis of observed facts. 
It must be directed by drawing as widely as possible on 
trained judgment and experience. If, in short, we arc 
to find a way of obtaining \ictory at sea or ensuring 
victory on land, we must, rather late in the day, it is 
true, seek a solution of the technical problems of sea 
power by staff methods. 
The greatest of our naval weaknesses in August, 1914, 
was that we were suddenly plunged into operations of 
war — that had been completely revolutionised, as the 
First Sea Lord reminds us — without having exhausted 
the possibilities of the new elements by experiment, 
without having analysed the capacities of the new weapons, 
without having studied how to employ them in offence, 
or to counter their use when the enemy so employed them. 
For practical purposes there are three naval weapons 
only — the gun, torpedo and mine. A new use for the 
torpedo was introduced by the invention of the sub- 
marine, and a new property had been given to it — as also 
to the gun — by the extension of range. But neither in 
August 1 914, nor at any period before that date, had the 
Admiralty instituted a staff for elucidating the technique 
of these three weapons. What has been done since the 
war we have not been told. But there are abundant 
evidences that in some departments at least, no changes 
were Inade in the right direction. Is it too late to put 
things on a proper basis now ? 
The Example of the Armies 
It is, at any rate, an encouraging precedent that the 
Allied armies on the Western front have found a way out 
of the tactical impasse that seemed to face them a year ago, 
by the method which I am now suggesting should be 
applied to the main naval problems. It is the combined 
staff work of the French and British forces that has dis- 
covered the formula of victory. It is a formula that 
takes into consideration a range of facts and a variety of 
weapons and of devices so vast as to constitute a problem 
seemingly infinitely complicated. Compared with it, 
each of the main naval problems should surely appear 
comparatively, simple. And if these problems were 
attacked as the military problem has been, is it not 
possible that the combined experience, knowledge, 
judgment and inventiveness of the navy could reduce 
all the elements to intelligible proportions and make 
practical solutions both obvious and easy ? Indeed, 
can we not almost say that the chief reason why the 
difficulties and anxieties of naval command are as 
poignant as the First Sea Lord has so eloquently stated 
them to be, is precisely because, in meeting them, the 
Commander-in-Chief has not at his disposal the picked 
brain power of the Navy working impersonally and un- 
ceasingly for his benefit ? 
I do not, of course, pretend, that however complete staff 
work might be, that modern sea war could be altogether 
relieved of certain elements of uncertaint}' from which 
our ancestors were free. The fact remains that there 
is one new clement in sea force to-day which has always 
seemed to me more^ striking than any of those which Sir 
Johh enumerated at Fishmongers' Hall. It is the fact 
that the stoutest ship in the world could be converted 
into a useless hulk, if not destroyed, by three hitting 
salvoes of her own guns. This was a thought that was 
familiar to us all before the war. It was, indeed, a 
commonplace of naval discussion that fleets would 
destroy each other with awe-inspiring rapidity. So 
few hits have, in fact, been made in the war, that this has 
ceased to be a source of anxiety. But there is no reason 
why the rate of hitting necessary for such destruction 
should not be attained, nor seemingly any means by 
which ships could be protected against it. But though 
— if it were ever realized — this would be a new element 
in sea war, would it not be all of a piece with the added 
pace that is the chief mark of all modern war ? A century 
ago, it took Europe twenty-three years of fighting to 
reach an issue with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. 
The issue with Gemiany should be settled in less than 
one-sixth of this time. The application of science and 
industry to transportation and weapons, by intensifying 
war, has necessarily abbreviated it. It is in many respects 
the most .striking of ward's transformations. A"d if this 
acceleration were developed at sea to the point of deciding 
fleet actions bv gunfire in a few minutes only, it would 
