In the Naval Annual of that year, it was reported that the Japanese contemplated laying down a battleship with an armament of four 12-inch and ten 10-inch guns. It was then announced that the Dreadnought was to carry a main armament of ten 12-inch 45 calibre guns, of 50 per cent. greater power than those carried by the Majestic, while the medium armament was to disappear entirely.
The question of protection entered also very largely into the consideration, and The Times, in describing the new ship, said that it was understood that "she was to be made as nearly unsinkable as possible from the explosion of a torpedo or mine." It was even stated that there would be no openings in the watertight bulkheads, and this proved to be the fact. Moreover, this ship was the first large vessel in the world to be fitted with turbines.
It was stated unofficially that this new ship of the all-big-gun type rendered obsolescent practically all the battleships of the world with mixed armaments—that is with guns of varying size. The British naval authorities continued to maintain a discreet silence as to the character of the new vessels, and the design, as its main characteristics became known, was assailed with a good deal of criticism. The controversy was at its height when President Roosevelt called upon Commander Sims, the Inspector of Target Practice in the United States Navy, to make a report upon the advantages possessed by the all-big-gun ship of high speed and complete armour protection in view of the criticism of the British design of Admiral Mahan.[13] Commander Sims, who had made a life-study of gunnery questions, prepared a long report describing the character of the revolution in design, and its influence upon the navies of the world. It is interesting to recall some passages from this report, which in its essential portions appeared in the proceedings of the United States Naval Institute, particularly as the British Admiralty have never considered it wise to enter upon a detailed defence of their policy. Commander Sims stated:
"Concerning the advisability of building all-big-gun ships, that is, discarding all smaller guns (except torpedo-defence guns) and designing the ships to carry the maximum number of heavy turret guns, these alone to be used in battle against other ships, I think it could be clearly shown that Captain Mahan is in error in concluding that it would add more to our naval strength to expend the same amount of money that the big ships would cost, for smaller and slower ships, carrying the usual intermediate guns (6-inch, etc.); and that, as in the question of speed, this error is due to the fact that much important information concerning the new methods of gun-fire was not considered by the author in preparing his article. (Note.—Unfortunately these methods of gun-fire cannot at present be specifically explained in a published article, as this would involve a discussion of our methods of controlling our ships' batteries, and bringing our ships into action with an enemy.)
"I may, however, assure the reader that, from the point of view of the efficiency of gun-fire alone, it would be unwise ever to build a man-of-war of any type whatever, having more than one calibre of gun in her main battery. In other words, it may be stated that the abandonment of mixed-battery ships in favour of the all-big-gun, one-calibre ship was directly caused by the recognition of certain fundamental principles of naval markmanship developed by gunnery officers.
"Therefore we have but to decide what the calibre for each class of ships should be, a decision which should present no special difficulty, provided it be first determined how we are to defeat the enemy—whether by the destruction of his ships (by sinking them or disabling their guns) or by the destruction or demoralization of their personnel.
"In this connection the following facts should first be clearly understood—namely:
"1. Turrets are now, for the first time, being designed that are practically invulnerable to all except heavy projectiles. Instead of having sighting-hoods on the turret roof, where sights, pointers, and officers are exposed to disablement (as frequently happened in the Russian ships) there will be prismatic sights, projecting laterally from the gun trunnions, through small holes in the side of the turret, and the gun-ports will be protected by 8-inch armour plates, so arranged that no fragments of shells can enter the turrets.
"2. On the proposed all-big-gun ships the heavy armour belt will be about eight feet above the water-line, and extending from end to end. The conning-tower, barbettes, etc., will be of heavy armour; and there being no intermediate battery (which could not be protected by heavy armour, on account of its extent), it follows that in battle all the gunnery personnel, except the small, single fire-control party aloft, will be behind heavy armour, and that, therefore, neither the ship or her personnel can be materially injured by small calibre guns.
"Considering, therefore, that our object in designing a battleship is that she may be able to meet those of our possible enemies upon at least equal terms, it seems evident that it would be extremely unwise to equip our new ships with a large number of small guns that are incapable of inflicting material damage upon the all-big-gun one-calibre ships of our enemies, or upon the personnel manning their guns."
In the same paper Commander Sims explained the principal tactical qualities that are desirable in a fleet—namely, compactness of the battle formation and the flexibility of the fleet as a unit—that is, its ability to change its formation in the least possible time and space with safety to its units. Proceeding to elaborate his views, Commander Sims stated:
"For example, suppose two fleets of eight vessels each, composed of ships that are alike in all respects, and suppose their personnel to be equally skilful, with the exception of the Commanders-in-Chief, whose difference in energy and ability is such that one fleet has been so drilled as to be able to man[oe]uvre with precision and safety while maintaining one-half the distance between its units that the other fleet requires.
"This is putting an extreme case, but it shows:
"1. That the short fleet, being about half the length of the other one, can complete certain important man[oe]uvres in about one-half the time and one half the space required for similar man[oe]uvres of the long fleet.
"2. That, when ranged alongside each other, the defeat of the long fleet is inevitable, since the rapidity of hitting of the individual units is assumed to be equal, and each of the four leading ships of the long fleet receives about twice as many hits as she can return, though the eighth ship of the short fleet would suffer a preponderance of gun-fire from the fifth or sixth vessel of the long fleet, the seventh and eighth being too far astern to do much damage, as would also be the case if the long fleet had several vessels astern of these.
"It is because of the principle here illustrated that the constant effort of competent flag-officers is to reduce the distance between the units of their fleets to the minimum that can be maintained with safety under battle conditions—that is, while steaming at full speed, without the aid of stadimeters, sextants, and other appliances that should be used only for preliminary drills.
"Doubtless some flag-officers, by constant competitive exercises in man[oe]uvring, may succeed in attaining an interval between ships that is less by 15 or 20 per cent. than that attained by others; but manifestly there is hardly any possibility of much greater improvement in this respect, because the minimum practical interval between ships depends upon their lengths and man[oe]uvring qualities. For example, the German interval is 300 metres from centre to centre, while larger ships, say 400 feet long, require about 400 yards, and those between 450 and 500 feet in length require about 450 yards.
"If we accept Captain Mahan's advice and build comparatively small, low-speed battleships, while our possible enemies build large, swift, all-big-gun ships, it seems clear that we will sacrifice the enormous advantages of fleet compactness and flexibility, the superior effect of heavy-gun fire and the ability to concentrate our fire—the loss of these advantages to be fully realised twenty-five years hence, when our enemies have fleets of big ships while we still have those of our present size."
Finally, this officer added:
"If it be claimed that it would be better to reduce the speed of the large vessel to sixteen knots and put the weight saved into guns, it may be replied that the heavy turret guns cannot be mounted to advantage (so as to increase the hitting capacity of the vessel) without very considerably increasing the size of the ship, because the number of heavy turrets that can be placed to advantage is governed largely by the length of the ship—which increases slowly with the displacement. This point is fully discussed in a recent article in a German publication. I do not remember the displacement used by the author to illustrate the principle, but, supposing the ones quoted below to be correct, he shows that if it requires a displacement of 20,000 tons to obtain a broadside fire of, say, eight 12-inch turret guns, you could not advantageously mount any additional turrets on 21,000 or 22,000 tons, but would have to go to 25,000 or 26,000 tons to obtain the necessary space. And, conversely, if you design a 20,000-ton battleship for sixteen instead of twenty knots, you cannot utilise the weight saved to increase the gun-power by adding 12-inch turrets, as you could by adding a number of intermediate guns.
"It is now hardly necessary to state that adding superimposed turrets (by which the number of guns could be doubled, if the weights permitted) does not materially increase the hitting capacity of the ship as a whole, because of the 'interference' caused by having four guns in one two-story turret, while it decreases her defensive power by adding to the vertical height of her vital targets.
"Captain Mahan characterizes the sudden inclination in all navies to increase the size of the new battleships (from about 15,000 to about 20,000 tons) as a 'wilful premature antiquating of good vessels' ... 'a growing and wanton evil.' If these words are intended in their true meaning, the statement is to me incomprehensible. I can understand an individual being wilful and wanton, but I cannot believe that the naval officers of the world could, without good cause, be suddenly and uniformly inspired in this manner. On the contrary, it seems to me that the mere fact of there being a common demand for such large vessels is conclusive evidence that there must be a common cause that is believed to justify the demand.
"This common cause is undoubtedly a common belief that the same amount of money expended for large war vessels will add more to a nation's naval power than the same amount expended for small vessels, for it cannot reasonably be assumed that the tax-ridden nations of Europe expend their great naval budgets wilfully and wantonly. Undoubtedly each nation earnestly strives to expend these sums as to derive the greatest increase of naval power. The same is true in reference to their armies. As the mechanical arts improve each nation endeavours to improve its war material. When a nation adopts new rifles, it is not a wilful premature antiquating of several million excellent ones, it is a case of force majeure—it must adopt them or suffer a relative loss of military efficiency, and it must make no mistake as to the relative efficiency of its weapons. In 1870 the French suffered a humiliating defeat as a direct result of the colossal conceit which rendered them incapable of accepting conclusive evidence that the German field artillery was greatly superior to theirs.
"The same law—that of necessity—governs the evolution of battleships. As might have been expected, this evolution has, as a rule, been gradual as regards increased displacement. The exception is the sudden recent increase (4,000 to 5,000 tons) in displacement. This exception therefore needs explanation.... It was due to a complete change of opinion as to the hitting capacity of guns of various calibres. This is now well understood by all officers who have recently been intimately associated with the new methods of gunnery training. These methods have demonstrated this point in such a manner as to leave no doubt in our minds as to the correctness of our conclusions. The rapidity of hitting of the heaviest guns has been increased several thousand per cent., and that of smaller guns about in proportion to their calibre.
" ... The inception of the epoch-making principles of the new methods of training belongs exclusively to Captain (now Rear-Admiral) Percy Scott, Director of Naval Practice of the British Navy, who has, I believe, done more in this respect to improve naval marksmanship than all of the naval officers who have given their attention to this matter since the first introduction of the rifled cannon on men-of-war; nor should we forget that this degree of improvement was rendered possible by the introduction of telescope sights, the successful application of which to naval guns was made by Commander B.A. Fiske, U.S. Navy, as early as 1892. As soon as the above facts gained general acceptance in Great Britain and the United States, the evolution of the all-big-gun one-calibre battleship became a foregone conclusion; and the reason for the great increase in displacement, as I understand it, is simply that you cannot build an efficient ship of this class on less than about 20,000 tons, because you cannot mount more than two 12-inch turrets to advantage upon a battleship of much less displacement, because the length and breadth are not sufficient."
The Dreadnought design and all that it meant threw the German Admiralty into confusion. At the moment they were still engaged in the construction of the vessels of the Deutschland class, of about 13,000 tons, in which primary importance was given to the secondary gun—fourteen 6·7-inch weapons—to the sacrifice of the big gun—four 11-inch pieces—and speed; whereas the new British design ignored the secondary gun in order to mount no fewer than ten big guns, and develop the speed to the extent of three or four knots above battleships then building. Before the Dreadnought of the British programme of 1905 had been laid down at Portsmouth, two German battleships of the familiar design with mixed armament had been begun—the Schleswig Holstein in the Germania Yard and the Schlesien at Dantzic. So completely were the German authorities unprepared for the revolution initiated by the British Admiralty, that from the summer of 1905 until July, 1907, the keel of not a single further battleship was laid in Germany. In the meantime, while British yards were busy with vessels of the new type, the design of the German ships was reconsidered. After an interval of two years the keels of two vessels of the Dreadnought type were laid down, and two more keels were placed in position a month later—that is, in August, 1907. These four ships—the Nassau class—inaugurated the Dreadnought policy in Germany. Two were completed in May, 1910, and two in September following.