Fleet Battle Tactics lectures, 1886 Apr-May

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ships will remain in such nearness, or in such a melee, as to greatly hamper their power of manoeuvring. When ramming or rammed, at the moment of collision and until way is again gained, a ship will be more or less helpless; and other moments of embarrassment will occur. In such a torpedo boat, large or small, certainly will find a good chance, and the samller will be the more handy; it will also be the more easily sunk.

It will be conceded then, under the second possible sphere of action for torpedo boats, that the chances in their favor increase with obscurity and with the intricacy of the positions of one or both fleets, or of the individual ships. This brings to the third case:

3rd. WHEN ONE OR MORE OF THE ENEMY'S When one or more of the enemy's ships is disabled. This disability may amount to total immobility, or may be no more than the loss of a fraction of speed say 20 per cent. The ship in question may be thus disabled in the midst of her own fleet, too powerful to be attacked; or she may be wholly deserted by that fleet in retreat; or she may be momentarily crippled or stopped, when the two fleets are still in close action, as when ramming. The kinds and degrees of disability would be very numerous. All that can be said is that every degree of disability will make attack easier, but that if she preserve the use of her own machine and light guns, and has the support of her fleet, an attack by torpedo boats, suppported or not, would be more

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risky to the boats than it would be to the class of vessels I have called Rams; even though the main battery remain uninjured, to be fired against the Rams.

In truth the torpedo boat, being wholly vulnerable, depends for its escape from harm on not being seen or at least not steadily kept in sight. The Ram on the contrary, depends upon the difficulty of hitting a small mark; which, moreover, is as nearly as possible impenetrable. She may be struck here, there and elsewhere without harm, provided only the engines are untouched and the Commander's senses not knocked out of him. The ideal attack of the Torpedo Boat is by night, unseen at all till close by, and then elusively by the glare of the electric light, which makes the outer darkness blacker than night itself. It is aided by the distraction caused by numbers. An attack of this kind is very feasible from a port, for suitable weather can be chosen, and the attack made in great numbers. Will you say that such a night attack might be made by one of two hostile fleets at sea? Possibly; on a dark quiet night such an undertaking, however desperate, will have to be guarded against. The difference between this contingency and the conditions of lying off a hostile port, is that in the latter case it is supposable that a great preponderance of boats may be brought against you; a supposition excluded by our problem, which deals with the encounter of nearly equal fleets.

In case of an attack by daylight, the torpedo Boat surrenders

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the main element of its defense as distinguished from the Ram, viz: its invisibility. It keeps its speed which the Ram also has, and the smallness of the target it presents; but this smallness as compared to the Rams, and with reference to the number of missiles directed against either, disappears. It is absolute, not relative, smallness. For one shot that can hurt the Ram, as I have said before, a score can be directed at the Boat. Further, the necessary multiplication of Boats increases the size of the target. Firing at a Ram is like firing with a non-repeating rifle at a bird in rapid flight; firing at a swarm of Torpedo Boats by daylight will be like firing small shot at a flock of reed birds.

My own judgment it will be seen, is adverse to the utility of the Torpedo Boat as a weapon in the open sea. Nevertheless I know that only experience can dispel the illusion, if it be one. The idea of disposing of a huge iron-clad, costing millions, by means of a torpedo costing a few hundred dollars, placed by a boat costing a few thousands, has the fascination which cheap bargains always have had in the eyes of mankind; we have all felt it. There is however little reason to doubt that the experience we have yet to gain in this will be like the experience the world has always had heretofore: that up to a certain point size, and with size concentration of power offensive and defensive, will have the advantage over the same power diffused in small bodies. In the days of sailing ships, which have made nearly all naval history so far, the

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74 and 80 gun ship was found to be the , though larger ships powerfully re-enforced portions of the line. Vessels of smaller calibre were gradually driven out of the line by the teaching of experience. French and Spanish ports swarmed with gunboats in the wars of the French Revolution; but what did they ever accomplish? What did our own gunboat policy result in? For the first half or more of the last century, France deliberately adopted the policy of small cruisers, with the result of filling English prisons with French seamen and abandoning the Empire of the seas. Finally to take the weapon that most nearly foreshadowed, by the terror to which it gave rise, our modern torpedo, the fire ship with all its fearful accompaniments; the fireship of which, in the days of Pepys, men spoke as destined to rule the sea, gradually dropped out of use, not from any scruples of humanity, but because it was not found efficient. Two hundred years ago, and for some time, the fireship was a regular component of the fleet; there were cases of its successful use in action; but for the most part the big ships were so successful in subduing them that they were discarded. It was in placing them that men failed; the problem of belling the Cat is ever difficult.

No exception, however, can be taken to iron-clads carrying torpedo boats in proportion to their size. Whatever doubt may be felt as to their usefulness in fleet actions, there can be none as to that which they have in many other ways that may easily offer.

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Until the question of their usefulness is decided in the negative it will also be necessary to consider their place and function in the order of battle.

I now come to my order of battle; but, before going on to discuss the orders of battle, let us recapitulate the various arms of the service which are to be stationed.

First: There is the large iron-clad ship, pre-eminently of the line, which acts with others always; and which with its consorts form the body, the main strength, of any order. While fitted to fight both at long range and at close quarters, it will prefer the former when it can be maintained. I will fix, arbitrarily long range at sea as all over 1000 yards.

Second: There is the large iron-clad Ram; by which I mean those vessels which from exceptional speed, and smallness of target offered to shot, are peculiarly fitted for closing with an enemy, and peculiarly able to retreat from such proximity unscathed.

They are fitted with the Ram and Torpedo, and find their special sphere in close action. They are as the arms of the fleet, stretched out for a sudden blow and as suddenly withdrawn; or stretched out in advance of the body of the fleet when in pursuit. If they carry guns, it must be in such weight as not to interfere with ther their prime object; within the limit they might powerfully re-enforce the artillery of the fleet in an artillery duel. (I have a passion for classification and outline).