(e) Improved arrangements for flooding magazines and drenching exposed cartridges had to be made.
Committees were immediately appointed in the Fleet to deal with all questions of this nature, as well as the important matter of possible developments in the fire-control system with a view to improving the methods of correction of fire to enable enemy ships to be “straddled” with greater rapidity. In all these matters, the great gunnery knowledge and experience of Captain F. C. Dreyer, my Flag Captain, were of immense assistance, and he was most ably seconded by the numerous highly skilled gunnery officers on the staffs of the Flag officers and in the ships of the fleet.
The action taken in connection with these matters was prompt, with the gratifying result that before I relinquished the command of the Fleet, the great majority of the heavy ships had been provided with additional deck protection on an extensive scale, and with fittings for rendering their magazines safe. Most of the work was carried out while the ships were at their usual notice for steam, much of it being actually done at Scapa Flow by the dockyard artificers berthed there on board the Victorious: the work carried out by these artificers and by the dockyard staff at Invergordon was executed with most commendable rapidity.
Later, during my period of service at the Admiralty, as First Sea Lord, and under the immediate direction of Captain Dreyer, then Director of Naval Ordnance, a new design of armour-piercing projectile, with a new type of burster and an altered fuse, was introduced for guns of 12-inch calibre and above, which certainly doubled their offensive power.
The investigation into the possibility of further development in fire-correction methods, a subject to which constant attention had been given throughout the War, was at first carried out by two independent committees. Their conclusions were considered by a third Committee, composed of the most experienced and most successful gunnery officers in the Fleet, and modified rules were, as the result, drawn up and passed for adoption in the Fleet; these had already produced a most convincing and most satisfactory advance in accuracy and rapidity of fire before I gave up Command of the Grand Fleet. It is no exaggeration to say that the average time taken to find the gun range of the enemy with these new methods was about one half of that previously required.
Some delay occurred in improving our range-finders. The majority had been installed in the Fleet before the great increases in the range of opening effective fire had come about, as the result of experience during the War. Our most modern ships at Jutland were provided with range-finders 15 feet in length, but the majority of the ships present were fitted with instruments only nine feet long. During 1917 successful steps were taken to supply range-finders up to 25 and 30 feet in length; a series of experiments with stereoscopic range-finders was also instituted in the same year. It had become known that the Germans used this type of range-finder. It should be stated, in passing, to prevent any misunderstanding, that the developments introduced in the fire-control arrangements of the Grand Fleet after the Battle of Jutland did not affect the instruments already in use, which fully met our requirements, but the methods of using those instruments and particularly the system of correction of fire.
On June 5th the Battle Cruiser Squadrons and Cruiser Squadrons were re-organised as follows:—
Battle Cruiser Squadron
Lion (Fleet-Flagship of Battle Cruiser Fleet).
1st Battle Cruiser Squadron:
Princess Royal (Flag), New Zealand, Tiger.