The Navy as a Fighting Machine

by Bradley A. Fiske

If the coming fleet is more powerful than the defending fleet, and has a more numerous and powerful scouting force, it will, therefore, be able to push back the defending fleet, whether an actual battle occurs or not; and it will be able to bring over, also, a large invading force in transports if its fighting superiority be great enough. Furthermore, if we have not fortified and protected the places which the enemy would wish to seize and use as advanced naval bases, the enemy will be able to seize them, and will doubtless do so.

Of course, this is so obvious as to seem hardly worth declaring; and yet some people hesitate even to admit it, and thereby they assume a passive condition of moral cowardice; for they know that a strong force has always overcome a weaker force that opposed it in war; and that it always will do so, until force ceases to be force. They know that force is that which moves, or tends to move, matter; and that the greater the force, the more surely it will move matter, or anything that opposes it.

If, however, we establish naval bases near our valuable commercial and strategic ports, both on our coast and in the Caribbean, and if we fortify them so that an enemy could not take them quickly, the condition of the enemy fleet will be much less happy; because it will have to remain out on the ocean, where fuelling and repairing are very difficult, and where it will be exposed, day and night, especially at night, to attack by destroyers and submarines; and in case necessity demands the occasional division of the force, it must beware of attacks on the separated portions of the fleet. The condition of a large fleet under way on an enemy's coast is one requiring much patience and endurance, and one in which the number of vessels is liable to be continuously reduced by the guerilla warfare of the defenders.

In the case of our attempting offensive operations against the distant coast of an enemy, we would be in the same position as a foreign enemy would be in when attacking our coast, in that our chances of success would be excellent if our fleet were considerably superior to the defending fleet in fighting power, and in the number and strength of scouts, and if the enemy coast possessed numerous undefended bays and islands which we could seize as bases. But even if the superiority of our fleet in fighting power and scouts was considerably greater than the enemy's our ultimate success would be doubtful, if the enemy's coast and islands were so protected by guns and mines and submarines that we could not get a base near the scene of operations. It is true that the British were able to maintain blockades of the French coast during many weary months without any base nearer than England—a place far away to ships whose only motive power was sails; but destroyers and submarines and mines did not then exist, and these agencies are much more valuable to the defender than to the blockader who has no base at hand.

Our operations without a base on a distant enemy coast would be apt to degenerate into warding off a continual series of more or less minor attacks by the minor craft of the defender. The commander of our fleet would be constrained to keep his fighting force pretty close together, thus restricting his initiative; lest the entire enemy fleet catch a detached part out of supporting distance of the main body, and annihilate it with little loss to themselves. We could probably shut off most of the enemy's sea-borne commerce; and the war would become one of endurance between our fleet, on the one hand, and the economic forces and the morale of the enemy country on the other hand.

In the case of operations carried on far away from the bases of both fleets, operations like those that the French and British carried on in the West Indies, the commanders-in-chief will naturally be much less directed by the admiralties at home than will a commander-in-chief operating near home; and the strategical advantage, as affected by the proximity of bases, and by the possession of the better chance for the initiative, will be reduced to its minimum.

Of course, the victory will go to the more powerful force; but so many factors go to make up power, that it may be difficult to determine which is the more powerful, until after victory itself shall have decided it. Supposing the skill to be equal on both sides, the victory will go to the side that possesses the most numerous and powerful vessels of all kinds. But unless there is a very great disproportion, it may be difficult to determine which side has the more powerful ships, even though we may know which side has the more numerous. It is extremely difficult to compare even two single war-ships because we do not know the relative values of their factors. Suppose two ships, for instance, to be equal in all ways, except that one ship has ten 14-inch guns, and the other has twelve 12-inch guns of higher initial velocity. Which is the more powerful ship? Suppose one ship has more armor, another more speed. Formulæ designed to assign numerical values to fighting ships have been laboriously worked out, notably by Constructor Otto Kretschmer of the German navy; but the results cannot be accepted as anything except very able approximations. Furthermore, if ship A could whip ship B under some conditions, B could whip A under other conditions. An extreme illustration would be battleship A engaged with submarine B at close quarters; B being on the surface in one case, and submerged in the other case.

Aircraft.—The influence of aircraft on naval operations is to be very great indeed, but in directions and by amounts that it would not be wise to attempt to predict. The most obvious influence will be in distant scouting, for which the great speed of aircraft will make them peculiarly adapted, as was demonstrated in the battle near the Skagerak. It is the belief of the author, however, that the time is close at hand when aeroplanes and dirigibles of large size will be capable of offensive operations of the highest order, including the launching of automobile torpedoes of the Whitehead type.

Skill.—The question of skill bears a relation to the question of the material power directed by it that is very vital, but very elusive. If, for instance, ship C, firing ten 12-inch guns on a side, fights ship D, firing five like guns on a side, the advantage would seem to be with C; but it would not be if each gun on D made three hits, while each gun on C made one hit; a relative performance not at all impossible or unprecedented. Similarily, if the head of the admiralty of the E fleet were a very skilful strategist, and the head of the admiralty of the F fleet were not, and if the various admirals, captains, lieutenants, engineers, and gunners of the E fleet were highly skilled, and those of the F fleet were not, the E fleet might be victorious, even if materially it were much the smaller in material and personnel. In case the head of the admiralty of the E fleet were the more skilful, while the officers of the F fleet were, on the average, more skilful than those of the E fleet, it would be impossible to weigh the difference between them; but as a rough statement, it may be said that if the head of the admiralty of either fleet is more skilful than the other, his officers will probably be more skilful than the officers of the other; so pervasive is the influence of the chief.

The effectiveness of modern ships and guns and engines and torpedoes, when used with perfect skill, is so great that we tend unconsciously to assume the perfect skill, and think of naval power in terms of material units only. Yet daily life is full of reminders that when two men or two bodies of men contend, the result depends in large though varying measure on their relative degrees of skill.