The Navy as a Fighting Machine

by Bradley A. Fiske

But suppose that the conditions are so easy that 90 per cent of hits are made and only 10 per cent of misses. Clearly, if the errors were divided by 10, so that only 1 per cent of misses was made, instead of 10 per cent, the number of hits would increase only 9 per cent, from 90 per cent to 99 per cent.

Of course, this is merely an arithmetical way of expressing the ancient truths that skill becomes more and more important as the difficulties of handling an instrument increase; and that, no matter how effective an instrument may be when used with perfect skill, the actual result obtained in practice is only the product of its possible performance and the effective skill with which it is used.

Applying this idea to naval matters, we see why the very maximum of skill is required in our war mechanisms and war organizations, in their almost infinite variety and complexity. The war mechanisms and war organizations of the military nations are capable of enormous results, but only when they are used with enormous skill. There are no other instruments or organizations that need so much skill to handle them, because of the difficulties attending their use and the issues at stake. Their development has been a process long and painful. On no other things has so much money been spent; to perfect no other things have so many lives been sacrificed; on no other things, excepting possibly religion, have so many books been written; to no other things has the strenuous exertion of so many minds been devoted; in operating no other things has such a combination of talent and genius and power of will and spirit been employed.

A battleship is an instrument requiring skill to handle well, considered both as a mechanism and as an organization. Its effective handling calls for skill not only on the part of the captain, but on the part of all hands. The finest dreadnaught is ineffective if manned by an ineffective crew. The number and complexity of the mechanisms on board are so great as to stagger the imagination; and the circumstances of modern warfare are so difficult that, as between two forces evenly matched as to material, a comparatively slight advantage in errors made will turn the scale in favor of the more skilful. A difference in errors, for instance, in the relation of 9 to 8, under the conditions mentioned above, between two fleets having an equal number of similar ships, would give one side twice as many hits as the other in any given length of time.

In March, 1905, the writer published an essay in the Proceedings of the U. S. Naval Institute called "American Naval Policy," in which the effect of initial superiority in gun-fire was shown in tables. One table showed that an initial advantage of only 10 per cent secured an overwhelming victory by an accumulative effect. Now a difference of 10 per cent in hits, under conditions in which the hits were about 10 per cent of the maximum, would mean, roughly speaking, the difference between 10 hits and 9 hits in a given length of time, or a difference between 90 misses and 91 misses; a difference in errors made of a little more than 1 per cent.

The conclusion to be drawn is too obvious to be stated. Perhaps the conclusion is not broadly new; but possibly the idea is new that so small a difference in errors made will, under conditions of sufficient difficulty, produce such a tremendous difference in results.

Now, a division is more complex and more difficult to handle perfectly than is a battleship; a squadron more so than a division; a fleet more so than a squadron; a navy more so than a fleet.

Necessity for Knowledge of the Naval Machine.—There is no machine or tool so simple that knowledge of it is not needed in order to use it skilfully. This does not mean that intimate knowledge of the details of construction of a machine is necessary in order to operate it; it does not mean, for instance, that a sharp-shooter must have a profound knowledge of the metallurgy of the metal of which his gun is mainly made, or of the laws of chemistry and physics that apply to powder, or of the laws of ballistics that govern the flight of the bullet to its target. But it does mean that any skilful handler of any machine must know how to use it; that a sharpshooter, for instance, must know how to use his machine—the gun.

Of course, a sharpshooter's skill is exercised in operating under very limited conditions, the conditions of shooting; and it does not include necessarily the maintenance of his gun in good condition. The operating of some machines, however, includes the maintenance of those machines; and a simple illustration is that of operating an automobile. An automobile is constructed to be operated at considerable distances from home; and a man whose knowledge and skill were limited to steering, stopping, starting, and backing the car—who had no knowledge of its details of construction and could not repair a trifling injury—would have very little value as a chauffeur.

A like remark might truthfully be made about the operation of any complex machine; and the more complex the machine, the more aptly the remark would apply. The chief engineer of any electric plant, of any municipal water-works, of any railroad, of any steamship must have the most profound and intimate knowledge of the details of construction and the method of operation of the machine committed to his charge. Recognition of this fact by the engineering profession is so complete and perfect as to be almost unconscious; and no man whose reasoning faculties had been trained by the exact methods of engineering could forget it for a moment. The whole structure of that noble science rests on facts that have been demonstrated to be facts, and the art rests on actions springing from those facts; and neither the science nor the art would now exist, if machines created by engineering skill had been committed to the charge of men unskilled.