The Navy as a Fighting Machine

by Bradley A. Fiske

The control and direction of a moving ship are very wonderful things; but the very ease with which they are exercised makes us overlook the magnitude of the achievement and the perfection of the means employed. It may seem absurd to speak of one man controlling and directing a great ship, but that is pretty nearly what happens sometimes; for sometimes the man at the wheel is the only man on board doing anything at all; and he is absolutely directing the entire ship. At such times (doubtless they are rare and short) the man at the wheel on board, say the Vaterland, is directing unassisted by any human being a mass of 65,000 tons, which is going through the water at a speed of 24 knots, or 27 miles, an hour, nearly as fast as the average passenger-train. In fact, it would be very easy to arrange on board the Vaterland that this should actually happen; that everybody should take a rest for a few minutes, coal-passers, water-tenders, oilers, engineers, and the people on deck. And while such an act might have no particular value, per se, and prove nothing important, yet, nevertheless, a brief reflection on the possibility may be interesting, and lead us to see clearly into the essential nature of what is here called "directability." The man at the wheel on board the Vaterland, so long as the fires burn and the oil continues to lubricate the engines, has a power in his hands that is almost inconceivable. The ship that he is handling weighs more than the 870,000 men that comprise the standing army of Germany.

Now can anybody imagine the entire standing army of Germany being carried along at 27 miles an hour and turned almost instantly to the right or left by one man? The standing army of Germany is supposed to be the most directable organization in the world; but could the Emperor of Germany move that army at a speed of 27 miles an hour and turn it as a whole (not its separate units) through 90 degrees in three minutes?

The Vaterland being a merchant ship and not fully representing naval power, perhaps it might be better to take, say, the Pennsylvania. The weight is about half that of the Vaterland, that is, it is nearly twice the weight of the men of the British standing army; and the usual speed is about, say, 15 knots. But in addition to all the power of the ship, as a ship, or an energy greater than that of 275,000 muskets, she has the power of all the guns, twelve 14-inch guns, and twenty-two 5-inch guns, whose projectiles, not including the torpedoes fired from four torpedo-tubes, have an energy at the muzzle equal to 750,000 muskets, seven-eighths of all the muskets in the German standing army. Now any one who has seen a battleship at battle practice knows that all the various tremendous forces are under excellent direction and control. And while it cannot be strictly said that they are absolutely under the direction and control of the captain, while it must be admitted that no one man can really direct so many rapidly moving things, yet it is certainly well within the truth to say that the ship and all it contains are very much more under the control of her captain than the German standing army is under the control of the Kaiser. The captain, acting through the helmsman, chief engineer, gunnery officer, and executive officer, can get very excellent information as to what is going on, and can have his orders carried out with very little delay; but the mere space occupied by an army of 870,000 men, and the unavoidable dispersion of its units prevent any such exact control.

In other words, the captain of the Pennsylvania wields a weapon more mechanically powerful than all the muskets of the German standing army: and his control of it is more absolute than is the Kaiser's control of that army.

Mechanism vs. Men.—Now what is the essential reason for the efficient direction exercised by the helmsman of the Pennsylvania, and the relative impotency of generals? Is it not that the helmsman acts through the medium of mechanism, while the generals act through the medium of men? A ship is not only made of rigid metal, but all her parts are fastened together with the utmost rigidity; while the parts of an army are men, who are held together by no means whatever except that which discipline gives, and the men themselves are far from rigid. In the nature of things it is impossible that an army should be directed as perfectly as a ship. The rudder of a ship is a mechanical appliance that can be depended upon to control the direction of the ship absolutely, while an army has no such a thing as a rudder, or anything to take its place. Again, the rudder is only a few hundred feet from the helmsman, and the communication between them, including the steering-engine itself, is a strong reliable mechanism that has no counterpart in the army.

The control of the main engines of a ship is almost as absolute as the control of the rudder; and the main engines are not only much more powerful than the legs of soldiers, but they act together in much greater harmony.

Inherent Power of a Battleship.—Possibly the declaration may be accepted now that a battleship of 30,000 tons, such as the navies are building now, with, say, twelve 14-inch guns is a greater example of power, under the absolute direction and control than anything else existing; and that the main reason is the concentration of a tremendous amount of mechanical energy in a very small space, all made available by certain properties of water. Nothing like a ship can be made to run on shore; but if an automobile could be constructed, carrying twelve 14-inch guns, twenty-two 5-inch guns, and four torpedo-tubes, of the size of the Pennsylvania, and with her armor, able to run over the land in any direction at 20 knots, propelled by engines of 31,000 horse-power, it could whip an army of a million men just as quickly as it could get hold of its component parts. Such a machine could start at one end of an army and go through to the other like a mowing-machine through a field of wheat; and knock down all the buildings in New York afterward, smash all the cars, break down all the bridges, and sink all the shipping.

Inherent Power of a Fleet.—An idea of the power exertable by a fleet of modern ships may be derived from the following comparison.

When Sherman made his wonderful march to the sea from Atlanta to Savannah, he made a march whose details are historically known, which was unopposed, which was over a flat country, in good weather, and without the aid of railroad-trains. It was a march, pure and simple; and inasmuch as men are the same now as they were then, it gives excellent data of the way in which purely military or army power can move from one place to another, while still preserving its character and exercising its functions. Similarly, when Admiral Schroeder, in November, 1910, went from the east coast of the United States to the English Channel, his march was unopposed, its details are known, and it gave an excellent illustration of how naval power can move from one place to another, while still preserving its character and exercising its functions.

Now General Sherman was a man of world-wide fame, and so were some of his generals, and Sherman's fame will last for centuries. Compared with Sherman, Admiral Schroeder was obscure; and compared with Sherman's officers, Admiral Schroeder's were obscure. Sherman's soldiers, privates and all, were made glorious for the rest of their lives by having been in Sherman's march to the sea, while Admiral Schroeder's sailors achieved no glory at all. So, the next paragraph is not intended to detract in the slightest from Sherman and his army, but simply to point out the change in conditions that mechanical progress has brought about.