HISTORY’S TEACHING AND THE FUTURE
The object of this paper has been not to present an accumulation of details, but to elucidate the principles upon which the details rest. The latter, when correct, are but the application of principles to practice. Subject to the imperfections attendant on all human work, the writer is persuaded that the greatest errors in practice—and especially the lack of homogeneousness which characterizes the present battle-ships—arise chiefly from the failure to refer back to principles. Until war has given us the abundant experience which led our predecessors to the broadside seventy-four as the rule, with occasional exceptions, we must depend upon reasoning alone for the solution of our problems; and the reasoner keeps within the limits of safety only by constant reference to fundamental facts.
The one experience of war which ships really contemporary have had was in the battle of the Yalu. Its teachings lose some value from the fact that the well-drilled Japanese used their weapons to advantage, while the Chinese were ill trained; still, some fair inferences can be made. The Japanese had a great many rapid-fire guns, with few very heavy ones, and their vessels were not battle-ships properly so-called. The Chinese, besides other vessels, had two battle-ships with heavy armor and heavy guns. Victory remained with the Japanese. In the opinion of the writer two probable conclusions can be reached: That rapid-fire guns in due proportion to the entire battery will beat down a ship dependent mainly upon turret guns; that is, between two ships whose batteries are alike the issue of the contest will depend upon the one or the other gaining first a predominance of rapid fire. That done, the turret guns of the predominant ship will give the final blows to the engines and turrets of the other, whose own turret guns cannot be used with the necessary deliberation under the preponderant storm of projectiles now turned upon them. The other conclusion, even more certain than the first, is that rapid-fire guns alone, while they may determine an action, cannot make it decisive. Despite the well-established superiority of the Japanese rapid fire in that action, the Chinese battle-ships, though overborne, were not taken. Their heaviest armor being unpierced, the engines and turret guns remained effective, and they withdrew unmolested.