Third Scheme.—The third kind of game is that in which the fleet is divided into two parts, fairly equal in each of the various elements, battleships, battle cruisers, destroyers, submarines, aircraft, etc. This scheme gives opportunity for more realistic situations than the other two, since each side operates and sees vessels and formations similar to those that it would operate and see in war; and it gives opportunity for games which combine both strategical and tactical operations and situations to a greater degree than do the other two schemes. Its only weakness is the fact that the entire fleet is not operated as a unit; not even a large fraction, but only about one-half. Like each of the other two schemes, however, it has its distinctive field of usefulness.
Its main advantage is its realism—the fact that two powerful naval forces, each composed of all the elements of a naval force, seek each other out; or else one evades and the other seeks; and then finally they fight a fairly realistic battle; or else one successfully evades the other; or else minor actions occur between detachments, and no major result occurs; just as happens in war.
Strategically, this scheme is less valuable than the other two; tactically, more so. For the experience and the records of the staff this scheme is less valuable than the other two, but for the training of the fleet it is more so.
Of course, the division of games for staff and fleet training into three general schemes is arbitrary, and not wholly correct; for no such division really exists, and in practice it would not be observed. The thought of the writer is merely to point out that, in a general way, the schemes may be divided into three classes, and to show the convenience of doing so—or at least of recognizing that there are three general kinds of games, and that each kind has its advantages and likewise its disadvantages.
In our navy, only three strategic problems or maneuvers, devised at the department, have been worked out at sea—one in May, and one in October, 1915, and one in August, 1916: all belonged in the second category. They were devised by the General Board and the War College, as we had no staff. The solving of the problems by the commander-in-chief aroused the greatest interest not only in the fleet, but in the Navy Department, in fact, throughout the entire navy, and to a surprising degree throughout the country, especially among the people on the Atlantic coast. Discussions of the utmost value were aroused and carried on, and a degree of co-operation between the department, the War College, and the fleet, never attained before, was realized. If a routine could be devised whereby such problems could be solved by practical games, say once a month, and the results analyzed and recorded in moving-picture form by the staff in Washington, we could see our way in a few years' time to a degree of efficiency in strategy which now we cannot even picture. It would automatically indoctrinate the navy and produce a sympathetic understanding and a common aim, which would permeate the personnel and make the navy a veritable organism. It would attain the utmost attainable by any method now known.
Attention is respectfully invited to the fact that at the present time naval strategy is mainly an art; that it will probably continue so for many years; that whether a science of naval strategy will ever be formulated need not now concern us deeply, and that the art of naval strategy, like every other art, needs practice for its successful use. Naval strategy is so vague a term that most of us have got to looking on it as some mystic art, requiring a peculiar and unusual quality of mind to master; but there are many things to indicate that a high degree of skill in it can be attained by the same means as can a high degree of skill in playing—say golf: by hard work; and not only by hard work, but by doing the same thing—or similar things—repeatedly. Now most of us realize that any largely manual art, such as the technic of the piano, needs frequent repetition of muscular actions, in order to train the muscles; but few of us realize how fully this is true of mental arts, such as working arithmetical or strategical problems, though we know how easy it is to "get rusty" in navigation. Our mental muscles and whatever nerves co-ordinate them with our minds seem to need fully as much practice for their skilful use as do our physical muscles; and so to attain skill in strategy, we must practise at it. This means that all hands must practise at it—not only the staff in their secret sanctuary, not only the commander-in-chief, not only the division commanders, but, in their respective parts, the captains, the lieutenants, the ensigns, the warrant officers, the petty officers, and the youngest recruits. To get this practice, the department, through the staff, must furnish the ideas, and the commander-in-chief the tools. Then, day after day, month after month, and year after year, in port and at sea, by night and by day, the ideas assisted by the tools will be supplying a continuous stimulus to the minds of all. This stimulus, properly directed through the appropriate channels and devoted to wise purposes, will reach the mess attendant, the coal-passer, and the recruit, as well as those in positions more responsible (though not more honorable); and as the harmony of operation of the whole increases, as skill in each task increases, and as a perception of the strategic why for the performance of each task increases, the knowledge will be borne in on all that in useful occupation is to be found the truest happiness; that only uninterested work at any task is drudgery; that interest in work brings skill, that skill brings pleasure in exerting it; and that the greater the number of men engaged together, and the more wise the system under which they work, the greater will be the happiness of each man, and the higher the efficiency of the whole.
[CHAPTER X]
RESERVES AND SHORE STATIONS
In the preceding chapter it was pointed out that the work of preparing the naval machine for use could be divided into two parts: preparing the existing fleet and preparing the rest of the navy.
The "rest of the navy" consists of the Navy Department itself, the naval stations, the reserve ships and men, and also the ships and men that must be brought in from civil life. As the department is the agency for preparing the naval stations, the reserves, and the men and ships brought in from civil life, it is clear that the work of preparing the department will automatically prepare the others. The work of preparing any Navy Department necessitates the preparation and execution of plans, whereby the department itself and all the rest of the navy will be able to pass instantly from a peace footing to a war footing; will be able to pass instantly from a status of leisurely handling and supplying the existing fleet by means of the offices, bureaus, and naval stations, to the status of handling with the greatest possible despatch a force which will be not only much larger, but also much less disciplined and coherent.