Purging the Navy of Obsolete Vessels.
Out of 193 ships at present in commission (not counting destroyers) organised in fleets, 63 only are of such calibre as not to cause an Admiral grave concern if allowed to wander from the protection of larger ships. There are among these several ships which should be paid off as soon as possible, being absolutely of no fighting value. And there are, further, several ships having trained naval crews doing the work usually performed by small merchant tramps. Further still, there are in our Home Ports many ships taking up valuable berthing space, requiring maintenance and repair, which never under any circumstances whatever would be used in war time.
The above useless vessels being in commission means awful waste of money.
Every ship that has defects taken in hand, and which would not be of use in war, is a waste of money to the country.
Of course objections will be raised, and it will be shown that the Navy cannot be run without them, but wipe them out, and in a year no one will remember that they ever existed.
It is well to review generally our distant stations and the composition of their squadrons.
The Navy and the country have grown so accustomed to the territorial nomenclature of our distant squadrons that their connection with the sea is considerably obscured, and their association with certain lands has led to a tacit belief that those particular squadrons are for the protection of the lands they frequent, and not generally for the destruction of the enemy’s fleet wherever it may happen to be. Of course no such idea is accepted by the Admiralty, but, in spite of the broad principles of strategy involved, certain fleets are composed largely with a view to work in restricted waters, which vessels would be a source of danger and weakness on the sudden outbreak of war with a combination of Powers.
Take the combination of ships on each of the following stations: North America, Cape of Good Hope, East Indies, and Australia. Remember the “Variag.” What happened in the small area of the theatre of operations in the present war will be repeated in the larger theatre of operations of a conflict of European Powers when the whole world will be involved. What will happen to our “Odins,” “Redbreasts,” “Fantomes,” “Dwarfs,” etc.? aye! and what will happen to our “Scyllas,” “Katoombas,” and “Hyacinths,” if caught sight of by first class cruisers of modern armament on foreign stations?[7] Lucky if they can reach a neutral port, disarm, and have their crews interned for the remainder of the war. Lucky, indeed, if a far worse fate does not befall them. At all events, such wholesale scattering of the British foreign fleets would lead to irreparable loss of prestige among the smaller States where these little vessels were usually located.
Now is there any necessity for such numbers of useless fighting ships? Cannot more efficient classes be substituted for them, or, at all events, some of them?
What we have to face is the probability of a serious combination of strong Powers against us, for then we will be unable to spare two first class cruisers to go in search of individual enemy’s first class cruisers, who, if not caught, may sweep round and lick up or force into neutral ports all our inefficient small fry.
Surely the three Atlantic squadrons should be of such strength as to be able to rendezvous and form a fleet more or less absolutely self-protective, to say nothing of being offensive. Such a squadron, under one admiral in war time, would be an effective Atlantic squadron, and would protect our interests by holding the ocean against enemy’s cruisers.
Such squadrons can be formed without increasing the personnel of the Navy, and, moreover, the crews would be in ships that would be used in war instead of being in “floating anxieties.”
Now for the present, sufficient cruisers, first class, do not exist to meet the requirements of supplying ships to take the place of smaller obsolete ones, and also for reserve purposes.
For the present a large proportion of cruisers, second class, must be retained, but it is hoped that these will in time be replaced by cruisers, first class, in the proportion of one cruiser, first class, to three cruisers, second or third class. No one can argue that one first class cruiser is not a superior fighting unit to three cruisers second or third class. Also one defect list instead of three!
If it should be insisted on that certain ports require certain small vessels, then they should be earmarked for that purpose, and only such places be recognised which larger vessels cannot frequent, such as the rivers on the West Coast of Africa (our territory), shallow rivers in China where no question of neutrality can arise, or special places of this nature. It should be overwhelmingly proved to the satisfaction of the Admiralty that essential conditions necessitate the presence of useless fighting ships before they relax their efforts to have such useless ships removed.
It should be accepted as a principle that the great aim and object of the Admiralty is to have nothing floating on the waters except the four fundamental types of fighting vessels, and that (for the present) lack of ships of the necessary classes prevents this being realised, but that as the delivery of ships takes place, the substitution will automatically follow.
The Foreign Office will in time be bound to recognise the real efficiency of the scheme, even if a consul is robbed of the shadow of support of a gunboat under his window, but has the substantial strength of a first class cruiser substituted at the end of a telegraph wire.
The danger that is eternally present to the Navy is over confidence in our preparedness for war.
The chief cause of unpreparedness for war is want of appreciation of the cumulative effect of daily small changes in our ships and armament on the whole question of strategy and shipbuilding.
Changes have slipped so gradually from wooden sailing ships through slow steam iron vessels to our present splendid ships of war that the tendency has always been to subordinate our strategy to our ship construction, rather than to mould our war ship design to suit our strategy.
Strategy should govern the types of ships to be designed.
Ship design, as dictated by strategy, should govern tactics.
Tactics should govern details of armaments.
In approaching the important question of ship design the first essential is to divest our minds totally of the idea that a single type of ship as now built is necessary, or even advisable, then to consider the strategic use of each different class, especially weighing the antagonistic attributes of nominally similar classes in the old wars.
To commence with the battleship.
The sole reason for the existence of the old line of battleship was that that ship was the only vessel that could not be destroyed except by a vessel of equal class. This meant that a country possessing the largest number of best equipped battleships could lay them alongside the enemy, or off the ports where the enemy were. Transports with the escort of a few battleships could then proceed to make oversea conquests. Squadrons of battleships or cruisers escorting the convoy of merchant ships and keeping the line of communications open. In each case the battleship, being able to protect everything it had under its wing from any smaller vessel, was the ultimate naval strength of the country. Then it was that, by means of the battleship only, was the command of the sea gained and held. Let us be quite clear on the matter, it was solely from the fact that the battleship was unassailable by any vessel except a battleship that made the command of the sea by battleships a possibility!
Hence battleships came to symbolise naval sea strength and supremacy. For this reason battleships have been built through every change of construction and material, although by degrees other vessels not battleships have arisen which can attack and destroy them.
Here therefore there is good ground for inquiry whether the naval supremacy of a country can any longer be assessed by its battleships. To build battleships merely to fight enemy’s battleships, so long as cheaper craft can destroy them, and prevent them of themselves protecting sea operations, is merely to breed Kilkenny cats unable to catch rats or mice. For fighting purposes they would be excellent, but for gaining practical results they would be useless.
This at once forces a consideration as to how a battleship differs from an armoured cruiser. Fundamentally the battleship sacrifices speed for a superior armament and protective armour. It is this superiority of speed that enables an enemy’s ships to be overhauled or evaded that constitutes the real difference between the two. At the present moment naval experience is not sufficiently ripe to abolish totally the building of battleships so long as other countries do not do so.
But it is evidently an absolute necessity in future construction to make the speed of the battleship approach as nearly as possible that of the armoured cruiser.
Next consider the case of the armoured cruiser.
In the old days the frigate was the cruiser, she was unarmoured, that is, her sides were so much thinner than those of the battleship that she was not able to fight in the line of battle, but the weak gun fire of those days permitted close scouting by such unprotected vessels, she could approach a battleship squadron very closely without fear of damage, she could sail round a fleet and count their numbers without danger to herself, unless chased off by other frigates, she was a scout and a commerce destroyer. Similarly with present day armoured cruisers, they can force their way up to within sight of a fleet, and observe them, unless chased off by other armoured cruisers, but to do this they have to be given a certain amount of protective armour.
The range of eyesight has remained constant, that of gunfire has increased. Speed is a necessity to ensure safety, armour protection to ensure vision.
It is evident, from the above considerations, that the functions of the frigate have devolved on the armoured cruiser to a greater extent than have the functions of the line of battleship devolved on the modern battleship.
But how about the unarmoured cruisers and those of low speed?
With loss of protection a cruiser loses her power of reasonable approach for observation purposes, and if to this be added a loss of reasonable speed her safety is gone. Cruisers without high speed and protection are entirely and absolutely useless.
Every vessel that has not high scouting speed, or the highest defensive and offensive powers, is useless for fighting purposes.
This is true of every class of vessel between the first class armoured cruiser and the fast torpedo vessel.