Then Admiral Bacon in a most lovely parable disposed of the “Bow and Arrow Party,” who want a lot of small guns instead of, as in the Dreadnought, but one type of gun and that the heaviest gun that can be made. This is Admiral Bacon:—
“I should like to draw your attention to some advice that was given many years ago by an old Post Captain to a Midshipman. He said, ‘Boy, if ever you are dining and after dinner, over the wine, some subject like politics is discussed when men’s passions are aroused, if a man throws a glass of wine in your face, do not throw a glass of wine in his: Throw the decanter stopper!’ And that is what we advocates of the Heavy Gun as mounted in the Dreadnought propose to do—not to slop the six-inch shot over the shirt-front of a battleship, but to go for her with the heaviest guns we can get; and the heavier the explosive charge you can get in your shell and the bigger explosion you can wreak on the structure near the turrets and the conning tower and over the armoured deck the more likely you are to disable that ship. We object most strongly to the fire of the big guns being interfered with by the use of smaller guns at the same time with all the smoke and mess that are engendered by them. The attention of the Observing Officers is distracted; their sight is to a great extent obliterated, and even the theoretical result of the small guns is not worth the candle.... The ordinary six-inch gun in a battleship is, as regards torpedo-boat attack, of just as much use as a stick is to an old gentleman who is being snow-balled: it keeps his enemy at a respectful distance but still within the vulnerable range of the torpedo. In these days the locomotive torpedo can be fired at ranges at which it is absolutely impossible even to hope or think of hitting the Destroyer which fires the torpedoes at you. You may try to do it, but it is quite useless. Very well, then; the six-inch gun does keep the Destroyer at a longer range than would be the case if the six-inch gun were not there, that’s all.... Then the problem of speed has been touched upon. I quite see from one point of view that to lose two guns for an extra five-knot speed seems a great loss; but there is one question which I should like to ask, and that is whether you would send out to sea a whole fleet, the whole strength of the nation, with no single ship of sufficient superior speed to pick up a particular ship of the enemy? That is the point to rivet your attention upon. We must always in our Navy have ships of greatly superior speed to any one particular ship in the enemy’s fleet, otherwise over the face of the sea you will have ships of the enemy roaming about that we cannot overhaul and that nothing can touch.”
The above words were spoken by Admiral Bacon two and three-quarter years before Admiral von Spee and his fast Squadron were caught up and destroyed by the British fast Battle Cruisers, “Invincible” and “Inflexible.” Admiral Bacon was a prophet! In other words, Admiral Bacon had Common Sense, and saw the Obvious.
It’s difficult for a shore-going person to realise things obvious to the sailor. For instance: in the case of a Big Gun, if twice two is four, then twice four isn’t eight, it’s sixteen, and twice eight isn’t sixteen, it’s sixty-four; that is to say, the bursting effect of a shell varies with the square. So the bigger the calibre of the gun the more immense is the desolating effect of the shell, and, incidentally, the longer the range at which you hit the enemy.
The projectile of the 20-inch gun that was ready to be made for H.M.S. “Incomparable” weighed over two tons, and the gun itself weighed 200 tons. Such a projectile, associated with a Howitzer, may effect vast changes in both Sea and Land War, because of the awful and immense craters such shell explosions would effect.
To illustrate the frightful devastating effect of such huge shell I will tell a story that I heard from a great friend of mine, a Japanese Admiral. He was a Lieutenant at the time of the Chino-Japanese War. The Chinese vessels mounted very heavy guns. One of their shells burst on the side of the Japanese ship in which my friend was. The Captain sent him down off the bridge to see what had happened, as the ship tottered under the effect of this shell. When he got down on the gun deck, he saw, as it were, the whole side of the ship open to the sea, and not a vestige of any of the crew could he see. They had all been blown to pieces. The only thing he rescued was the uniform cap of his friend, the Lieutenant who was in charge of that division of guns, blown up overhead between the beams. The huge rope mantlets that acted as splinter nettings hung between the guns had utterly disappeared and were resolved into tooth powder! (so he described it).
I digress here with an anecdote that comes to my mind and which greatly impressed me with the extraordinary humility of the Japanese mind. I had remonstrated with my Japanese friend as to Admiral Togo not having been suitably rewarded for his wonderful victory over the Russian Admiral Rozhdestvensky. He replied: “Sir, Admiral Togo has received the Second Class of the Order of the Golden Kite!” We should have made him a Duke straight off! Togo was made a Count afterwards, but not all at once—for fear, I suppose, of giving him a swelled head. He was a great man, Togo; he was extremely diffident about accepting the English Order of Merit, and even then he wore the Order the wrong way out, so that the inscription “For Merit” should not be seen. The Mikado asked him, after the great battle, to bring to him the bravest man in the Fleet; the Mikado expecting to see a Japanese of some sort. I am told that Admiral Togo brought Admiral Pakenham, who was alongside him during the action. I quite believe it; but I have always been too shy to ask my friend if it was true. All I know is that I never read better Despatches anywhere than those of Admiral Pakenham.
Reproduced by courtesy of “The Graphic”
Lord Fisher’s Proposed Ship, H.M.S. “Incomparable,” shown alongside H.M.S. “Dreadnought.”