For a great many years in naval gunnery two distinct ideas have prevailed—one is to inflict on the enemy, although not necessarily much (in quantity), severe and heavy damage—i.e. to stop movement—to penetrate under the water-line—to get a burst in the hull below the water-line—briefly, to put the ship at once out of action. The other is to pour upon him the greatest volume of fire in the shortest time—though it be above water and the actual damage caused by each individual shot be immaterial—in the hope of paralysing the ship, trusting that if this were done it would not be difficult to destroy her completely—that she would, in fact, sink by herself.
With modern guns, in order to secure the first of the above ideas, solid armour-penetrating projectiles must be employed—i.e. thick-coated shells (whose internal capacity and bursting charge is consequently diminished), and percussion fuzes with retarded action, bursting the shell inside the target. To secure the second idea shells need only be sufficiently solid to ensure their not bursting at the moment of being fired. The thickness of their walls may be reduced to the minimum, and their internal capacity and bursting charge increased to the utmost limits. The percussion fuses should be sensitive enough to detonate at the slightest touch.
The first of the above views prevails chiefly in France, the second in England. In the late war we held the first, and the Japanese the second.
[17] A colonel of the marine artillery—flag gunnery officer.
[18] By the Admiral’s order the iron oil drums, instead of being thrown away, had been converted into buckets, and these home-made contrivances were placed about the decks.
[19] In the Battle of Tsu-shima the Japanese losses were:
| Killed | 113 |
| Dangerously wounded | 139 |
| Severely wounded | 243 |
| Slightly wounded | 42 |
These figures are sufficiently eloquent, even allowing for the reports of Japanese officers to be somewhat partial. Almost half of the casualties (252 out of 537) were killed and dangerously wounded, the other half were severely and slightly wounded—less than 8 per cent. The total number was insignificant. Our shells evidently either never burst, or burst badly, i.e. in a few large pieces. The Japanese bursting charge was seven times stronger than ours, and consisted not of pyroxylene, but of shimose (and perhaps of something still more powerful). Shimose, on exploding, raises the temperature one and a half times higher than pyroxylene. In fact, one might say that a Japanese shell bursting well did as much damage as twelve of ours bursting equally well. And this ours rarely succeeded in doing!
[20] The ships nearest to us reported afterwards that the armoured shield on our after turret had been blown right up above the bridges, and then was seen to fall crumpled up on to the poop. What had actually happened was not known.
[21] In order to establish a connection between the facts which I personally saw and noted down, and in order to be able to explain the Japanese movements, I shall have recourse to sources which can hardly be suspected of partiality towards us. I refer to two Japanese official publications which are both entitled “Nippon-Kai Tai-Kai-Sen” (“The Great Battle in the Sea of Japan”). The books are illustrated by a number of photographs and plans taken at different moments of the fight, and contain the reports of various ships and detachments. A few quite immaterial differences in description of detail by various witnesses have not been removed, as they only give the stamp of truth to the publication.