Many defects in our preparations for war have been attributed to our lack of staff machinery in the years preceding the war. The defenceless state of the fleet’s bases, the absence of any policy for using mines, or the means for carrying one out, the contrast between our pre-war confidence in our gunnery methods and what they have achieved in action, these and a score of other deficiencies have been attributed, and probably rightly, to our failure to appreciate the fact that modern war is so various and complicated a thing, and employs instruments and weapons and methods, the full possibilities of which are so obscure that only a long concerted effort could analyze and unravel them, that no organ except a General Staff could possibly have laid down the right doctrine of war or ensured the means of its application. But of all the evidence of what we had lost by its absence, I know of none more striking than that from the outbreak of war until Sir David Beatty took command of the whole main forces of the navy, those forces should have been divided, and the two divisions commanded by men whose views as to the main purpose for which the force existed were utterly incompatible. It is amazing that Whitehall either never knew that this divergency of doctrine existed, or, knowing it, should not have secured that one or the other doctrine should predominate.
No official despatches descriptive of the attacks on Zeebrügge and Ostend have been published. For these extraordinary events, then, we have to rely upon the stories officially given out by the Admiralty’s descriptive writer and the interviews which the officers concerned were allowed to give to different journalists.
CHAPTER VII
1. Naval Gunnery, Weapons, and Technique
Before passing to the actions, it is important to have a clear idea of two things which these actions illustrate. The first is the nature of the advantage which heavy guns have over lighter pieces. In each of these actions the side which had the largest number of heavier guns, or generally heavier guns, was successful. A heavy shell obviously has far greater effect than a light shell when it hits. Its advantages in this respect do not need demonstration. It is as well, however, to make it quite clear why it is more probable that a heavy shell will hit.
And next, these actions illustrate the great advance in fire control which has been made in the last ten years, and they also show, and I think convincingly, the limitations of the systems in use. As my comments on these actions will be particularly directed towards showing the tactical developments that have followed on the advance of gunnery and towards what further tactical developments must follow from a greater advance, it is essential that the nature of the fire-control problem should be understood.
The principle of heavy guns being superior at long range is exemplified by the [Sketches 1] and [2]. [Sketch 1] represents the manner in which a salvo of guns may be expected to spread if all the sights are set to the same range. All guns lose in range accuracy as the range increases, but light guns more than heavy. If six 6-inch guns are fired at a target at 12,000 yards the shell will be apt to be spread out as shown in the top line. Six 9.2’s will fall in a closer pattern, as shown in the second line, six 12-inch in a still smaller space, and the 13.5 in one still smaller. Regarded simply as instruments for obtaining a pattern at a given range, heavy guns are, therefore, far more effective than light ones.
Big guns more accurate at long range, because more regular