There is another commodity, which ships have never been able to do without, and which they need now in higher proportion than ever. That commodity is fresh water. The squadron constituted as assumed would require an average of about 160 tons of fresh water a day, and nearly 30,000 tons in six months. Of this the ships, without adding very inconveniently to their coal consumption, might themselves distil about one-half; but the remaining 15,000 tons would have to be brought to them; and another thousand tons would probably be wanted by the auxiliaries, making the full six months' demand up to 16,000 tons.
The tonnage requirements of the squadron and its 'auxiliaries' for a full six months' period would be about 74,000, without fresh water. As, however, the ships would have started with full store-rooms, holds, and bunkers, and might be expected to return to the principal base-port of the station at the end of the period, stores for four-and-a-half months', and coal to meet twenty weeks', consumption would be sufficient. These would be about 6750 tons of stores and ammunition and 46,000 tons of coal.[98]
[Footnote 98: To avoid complicating the question, the water or distilling vessel, the hospital ship, and the repair vessel have not been considered specially. Their coal and stores have been allowed for.]
The stores, &c., would have to be replenished twice and—as it would not be prudent to let the ships run right out of them—replenishment should take place at the end of the second and at the end of the fourth months. Two vessels carrying stores and ammunition, if capable of transporting a cargo of nearly 1700 tons apiece, would bring all that was wanted at each replenishment. To diminish risk of losing all of one description of supplies, if carried by itself in a separate vessel, it has been considered desirable that each supply-carrier, when employed, is to contain some ammunition, some stores, and some provisions. There are great advantages in having supply-carriers, including, of course, colliers, of moderate size. Many officers must have had experience of the inconvenience and delay due to the employment of a single very large vessel which could only coal one man-of-war at a time. Several vessels, each carrying a moderate amount of cargo, would permit much more rapid replenishment of the ships of a squadron. The inconvenience that would be caused by the loss or breakdown of a supply-carrier would be reduced by employing several vessels of moderate cargo-capacity instead of only one or two of great capacity.
Each battleship and large cruiser of the assumed squadron may be expected to burn about 1000 tons of coal in five weeks, so that the quantity to be used in that time by all those ships would be 8000 tons. The remaining ships, scattered between different places as most of them would probably be, would require about 3500 tons. Therefore, every five weeks or so 11,500 tons of coal would be required. Four replenishments would be necessary in the whole period, making a total of 46,000 tons. Each replenishment could be conveyed in five colliers with 2300 tons apiece.
Moderate dimensions in store- and coal-carriers would prove convenient, not only because it would facilitate taking in stores and coaling, if all the squadron were assembled at one place, but also if part were at one place and part at another. Division into several vessels, instead of concentration in a few, would give great flexibility to the system of supply. A single very capacious cargo-carrier might have to go first to one place and supply the ships there, and then go to supply the remaining ships lying at another anchorage. This would cause loss of time. The same amount of cargo distributed amongst two or more vessels would permit the ships at two or more places to be supplied simultaneously.
You may have noticed that I have been dealing with the question as though stores and coal were to be transported direct to the men-of-war wherever they might be and put straight on board them from the carrying-vessels. There is, as you all know, another method, which may be described as that of 'secondary bases.' Speaking generally, each of our naval stations has a principal base at which considerable or even extensive repairs of the ships can be effected and at which stores are accumulated. Visits to it for the sake of repair being necessary, the occasion may be taken advantage of to replenish supplies, so that the maintenance of a stock at the place makes for convenience, provided that the stock is not too large. The so-called 'secondary base' is a place at which it is intended to keep in store coal and other articles in the hope that when war is in progress the supply of our ships may be facilitated. It is a supply, and not a repairing base.
A comparison of the 'direct' system and 'secondary base' system may be interesting. A navy being maintained for use in war, it follows, as a matter of course, that the value of any part of its equipment or organisation depends on its efficiency for war purposes. The question to be answered is—Which of the two systems promises to help us most during hostilities? This does not exclude a regard for convenience and economy in time of peace, provided that care is taken not to push economy too far and not to make ordinary peace-time convenience impede arrangements essential to the proper conduct of a naval campaign.
It is universally admitted that a secondary base at which stocks of stores are kept should be properly defended. This necessitates the provision of fortifications and a garrison. Nearly every article of naval stores of all classes has to be brought to our bases by sea, just as much as if it were brought direct to our ships. Consequently the communications of the base have to be defended. They would continue to need defending even if our ships ceased to draw supplies from it, because the communications of the garrison must be kept open. We know what happened twice over at Minorca when the latter was not done.
The object of accumulating stores at a secondary base is to facilitate the supply of fighting ships, it being rather confidently assumed that the ships can go to it to replenish without being obliged to absent themselves for long from the positions in which they could best counteract the efforts of the enemy. When war is going on it is not within the power of either side to arrange its movements exactly as it pleases. Movements must, at all events very often, conform to those of the enemy. It is not a bad rule when going to war to give your enemy credit for a certain amount of good sense. Our enemy's good sense is likely to lead him to do exactly what we wish him not to do, and not to do that which we wish him to do. We should, of course, like him to operate so that our ships will not be employed at an inconvenient distance from our base of supplies. If we have created permanent bases in time of peace the enemy will know their whereabouts as well as we do ourselves, and, unless he is a greater fool than it is safe to think he is, he will try to make us derive as little benefit from them as possible. He is likely to extend his operations to localities at a distance from the places to which, if we have the secondary base system of supply, he knows for certain that our ships must resort. We shall have to do one of two things—either let him carry on his operations undisturbed, or conform to his movements. To this is due the common, if not invariable, experience of naval warfare, that the fleet which assumes the offensive has to establish what are sometimes called 'flying bases,' to which it can resort at will. This explains why Nelson rarely used Gibraltar as a base; why we occupied Balaclava in 1854; and why the Americans used Guantanamo Bay in 1898. The flying base is not fortified or garrisoned in advance. It is merely a convenient anchorage, in a good position as regards the circumstances of the war; and it can be abandoned for another, and resumed, if desirable, as the conditions of the moment dictate.