Heresies of Sea Power/Part 3/Chapter 3

by John Fredrick Thomas Jane

III

THE DIMENSIONS OF WARSHIPS

No theory has relied more upon 'the teachings of history' than the theory of moderate dimensions. It is a known fact that in the days of the Great War the seventy-four was found to be the handiest ship and the best compromise. Using mostly the seventy-four-gun ship, Nelson and his compeers used to beat opponents whose larger ships they overwhelmed with superior numbers. Nelson also once made a remark to the effect that 'only numbers can annihilate.' With these facts as a base, history has been searched for examples to prove that moderate dimensions and numbers are better than larger dimensions and fewer numbers.

The 'moderate dimensions' advocates have, however, always been careful to explain that they mean moderate dimensions and not small dimensions—which, examined, will be found to be but another way of saying that they advocate a size smaller than the largest possible. This, they say, won battles in the past. Undoubtedly it did: but before the argument can be accepted it is necessary to ask two things:—

1. Were the 'two to one' tactics necessitated by the existence of moderate dimensions?

2. Is any reasoning from the old wars with short ranges applicable to the present days of long ranges?

As regards the first, 'two to one,' though practised by Nelson, was certainly not invented by him. To overwhelm a part of the enemy with the whole of your own force has always been a principle of war, eternal because obvious. It is hard to find a period when it did not exist as the ideal objective. Alcibiades used it in the Peloponnesian war, and so has every winner since, and so will he go on doing till the end of time. But the 'two' (by which the superior force is meant) need not be a numerical superiority—it is a matter of indifference whether the superior power be made up of greater numbers of ships, superior skill in gunnery, superior courage, superior leadership, or superior anything else, so long as the sum of these things is superiority to the enemy.

Of all factors in war, superior gun-fire is one of the most important: to secure it—that is to say, to secure concentration of fire—those with the moderate-sized ships had, in the old days, to concentrate vessels.

Obviously it is begging the question to argue therefrom that moderate-sized ships gave victory—Trafalgar would have been won equally well with half the number of ships of double the power, or one third the number of ships of thrice the power, supposing such ships to have existed.

They did not, however, exist. As has been pointed out by Sir Philip Watts,^[1] in the days of wooden ships it was almost impossible to increase length to any extent in order to get more power, because of certain technical difficulties of construction. Consequently increased power was only to be obtained by adding an extra deck, and this entailed a loss of handiness, a loss of speed, a loss of seaworthiness, and such general disabilities that for all-round work the seventy-four was almost the largest unit practicable. Bigger ships were built, but they were always, to some extent, experimental, and never fully satisfactory. That is the real reason why the bulk of the British fleet in the Great War consisted of seventy-fours.

There is now the second point to consider. In the old days, moderately effective range was a matter of a hundred yards or so and really effective range was ship touching ship. Concentration of power was, therefore, necessarily the concentration of ships.

To-day these conditions have entirely vanished. The gun radius is so extended that any number of ships can concentrate effectively on one after another of the enemy, without ever approaching inside a couple of miles. It is, however, far easier to handle six big ships than twelve smaller ones of equal total power, because the twelve will be occupying about double the space and, therefore, less easily able to act as one in the matter of concentrating on a single unit. Furthermore, size now entails no loss of speed or handiness, but instead means, if anything, more of both, and certainly entails superior endurance, sea-worthiness and ability to receive heavy blows.^[2] There is, in fine, no single argument against the 'mastodon' except that her loss is more heavily felt than the loss of a smaller unit.

Even this, however, is mostly an imaginary drawback, since there is no evidence of five moderate-sized ships ever having been built instead of four larger ones. Thus Germany has adhered strictly to her five-battleships-a-class rule, as much with the Kaisers as with the larger Deutschlands.

The United States, acting under the influence of one of the most extraordinarily illogical fits that ever seized men responsible for Naval construction, did in the Idaho and Mississippi, construct two moderate ships as part of a programme consisting mostly of big units. But it is clear that these two moderates were built instead of two monster ships, so that the net result was the loss of a knot speed in two fighting units, also a loss of power both for offence and defence. And what was gained? Nothing, save the triumph of a principle which has nothing to recommend it, and the establishment of the fact that certain Americans are unable to read history except through their own glasses.

It would be little more illogical to demand sails and smooth-bores because Nelson won using sails and smooth-bores than to demand moderate dimensions because his ships were seventy-fours! The processes of reasoning applied to the one can equally well be applied to the others. Let us, however, suppose for a moment that a nation, instead of determining to build so many ships, determine instead (which no nation does) to build so many thousand tons of shipping and decided to have five moderate ships instead of four more monstrous ones. Suppose, for instance, Japan had constructed five Fujis instead of four Shikishimas,^[3] then the loss of the Hatsuse, instead of being the loss of one sixth of her battle fleet, would have been the loss of one seventh; but would a Fuji have survived the hammering that the Mikasa took at the battle of Round Island? The Hatsuse struck by one mine kept afloat (it was pure chance that another struck and caused her to sink), whereas the smaller Yashima was totally disabled and finally sank from the effect of one. We cannot logically base an argument on the fact that the Hatsuse was struck twice—yet this is what the moderate dimensionists unconsciously do. They ignore that big ships are much better fitted to survive damages which will assuredly sink smaller ones.

Tsushima occasionally resolved itself into duels. There was a duel between the heavy Asahi and lighter Borodino, entirely in the former's favour. The result could not have been otherwise unless the Russians had possessed some considerable superiority of personnel, for the Asahi being heavier was so much better fitted to take punishment. Some fifteen per cent, heavier she had more than a fifteen per cent, advantage, ship to ship.

The most absurd thing, however, about the 'plea for moderate dimensions based on history' so continually set up, is that only the shallow thinker can possibly find historical warrant for his ideals. In all ages the tendency has been to increase size, else we were still in the stage when men fought battles mounted on logs.

We may go right back so far as Thucydides. In his opening pages the great historian of the Peloponnesian war refers to the absence of 'decked vessels' in the Athenian fleet and their gradual introduction. These 'decked vessels' were the 'mastodons' of those days, the undecked ones 'moderate dimensions.' It was the former that came into general use, presently to become moderate dimensions because triremes appeared. In the Punic wars the trireme gave place to ships with six or more banks of oars, and by the time of Actium ships of fifteen banks had become the standard. These were defeated by the smaller ships of Octavianus, but dimensions, as history clearly shows, had nothing to do with the matter.^[4] The fitter to win overcame the opposition of the mastodons, but it was the inferiority of his personnel, not the dimensions of his matériel, that lost to Antony Actium and the world. At Lepanto size had gone up again, and the mastodon proved itself eminently all-powerful and ideal as a fighting machine.

When King Alfred founded the British Navy in the ninth century, the special feature of his galleys, built to compete with the Danish raiders, was that they were bigger than the Danes.

In the time of the Crusaders, much of the Saracen Sea Power rested on big dimensions. Now and again, of course, these big ships were captured. The more

|moderate dimensioned ship of King Richard himself captured one, but owing to the size of the Saracen his men were several times repulsed and only succeeded in the end when the King assured them that death by torture would be the fate of all if the Saracen got away.^[5]

The Harry Grâce à Dieu, the Great Michael, the Great Harry and all such ships were strivings after the mastodon. Uniformly successful they were not, but they soon became the moderate dimensions of a succeeding age. In the Spanish Armada the Spanish mastodons did not win against the smaller ships of England, but no thoughtful student can see in that an argument for moderate dimensions. Would the Spaniards have won had the two sides changed fleets?

From Fincham.

THE GREAT HARRY.

Assuredly not. They failed for other than constructional reasons: their size indeed helped them in their battles in the Channel, since relatively little impression was made upon them by the English vessels. Had the galleons been of moderate dimensions few probably would ever have passed the Straits of Dover.

In the Nelson era and thereabouts, size many a time proved advantageous, despite the already stated draw-backs that the mastodon then suffered from.

There is, for instance, the well-known case of the Revolutionnaire, 110, in Lord Howe's battle of 28th May, 1794. She was first engaged by the Bellerophon, 74, for an hour and a quarter. She was then engaged in succession by two other seventy-fours, but survived all three attacks of ships aggregating just double her gun fire, coming in succession against her. 'The concentration upon her,' says Captain Mahan, 'though eminently judicious, served to bring out vividly the advantage, which should never be forgotten, of one heavy ship over several smaller, though the force of the latter may, in the aggregate be much superior.'

Again, in the battle of Cape St. Vincent, the Santissima Trinidad, 130, though she bore the brunt of the British attack, was neither captured nor destroyed in the defeat sustained by the Spanish Fleet. Her dimensions saved her.

The teaching of history, therefore, is surely that, though men in ships of moderate dimensions have succeeded at times, in defeating men in big ships, the fact of big opponents has always rendered their victory more difficult, and at times half neutralised it. Nelson's 'Only numbers can annihilate' surely meant very clearly Since the bulk of available ships are of moderate size there must be plenty of them to secure victory,' or more baldly still, 'Since you cannot give me quality, give me quantity.'

Those who wish to do so will always go on seeing in the victory of the Japanese ships at Yalu a triumph for moderate dimensions in modern days; but the thoughtful will remark the defects of personnel, ammunition and leadership from which the Chinese suffered, and remember, too, that the big battleships held out to the end of the day and covered the retreat of the beaten Chinese. Also that the Japanese subsequently ordered mastodon battleships in preparing for the war with Russia, though advised not to by all the advocates of moderate dimensions. The Russians, on the other hand, went in for moderate dimensions.

Of the mastodons, and the modern trend towards having nothing but monster ships with quite small auxiliaries; history can say nothing except that to strive after the mastodon has been the invariable tendency; though in all ages there have been those whose voices have been raised against it. When ships were of 100 tons there were many who advocated 75 instead; just as when in the future 100,000 tons is reached there will be men to argue for 75,000 tons. In dimensions there is no finality, to plead for

moderation can, therefore, hardly be logical, since in essence it resolves itself into an attempt to hold back the clock of time. As science progresses, so will demands upon dimensions increase, the best offence and the best defence must ever demand more and more bulk to carry them. Moderation is, therefore, of the nature of a handicap, which certain excellencies of personnel have to be used to overcome.

The application of this question of dimensions to the future is important; though in all ages, till quite recently, the tendency has been to overlook the point. Thus the dimensions of big ships have been kept down by the fact that docks have always been built for the present rather than for the future. The docks initiated in the twentieth century have been more wisely planned: allowances for increased dimensions in the future have been made, and so the prohibitive expense against normal increase will no longer exist so acutely as in the past.

A very few feet of beam added to the plans of any existing 'mighty cruiser' would give a battleship of at least 30,000 tons, therefore, it may confidently be expected that 30,000 tons will come in a few years. Such a size might well be nearly torpedo proof, it would certainly admit of an armament capable of blowing any present day 18,000-ton ship out of the water, certainly render the mastodon difficult to injure by any gun now existing. There have been those who have foreseen the advent of explosives so powerful that a single hit will be decisive and from this they have argued that a return to small units is bound to come.^[6] Temporarily such a thing is in the possibilities, but the chances are against it; the immunity of sufficiently large dimensions will always be obvious and, therefore, probably always be sought in the future as in the past. Constructional problems grow less and less serious, only those connected with seamanship and so forth promise to remain. These, in matters relating to draught, may possibly remain constant, but this is in no way certain, since all objections as to increased draught limiting utility are to be met by an appeal to history. In ancient times six-foot draught or so represented the utmost possible maximum; modern navies, though they have multiplied this by five, are still quite suitable to their environments. It is rash, therefore, to assume limits in this direction just because such limitations most naturally occur to us.

In any case length and beam admit of great expansion without much difficulty; increased bulk must, therefore, be looked for as a factor in the natural order of things. Economy acts as a drag and a retarder of increase, but size will obviously go on expanding. Whence the only logical course of each and every Admiralty seeking sea dominion, is to build every new warship a little larger and consequently a little more powerful than its possible opponents. It cannot cry a halt and adhere to moderate dimensions without giving hostages to fortune.

The best known modern examples of moderate dimensions are the Swiftsure and Triumph of 12,000 tons odd. Designed about the same time were the Lord Nelsons of 16,760 tons, so that approximately seven of the former could be built for the tonnage (not the cost) of five of the latter. Let us compare the total of guns. We get:—

05 Nelsons	7 Swiftsures
20 12 inch.	28 10-inch.
50 9.2-inch.	98 7.5 -inch.
12-inch belts.	7-inch belts.

On the question of attack all the power is with the five, the seven have numbers only. In defence the five are practically invulnerable at the water line, the seven are vulnerable at almost any range. What chance is theirs? The only possible chances reside in extremely superior personnel (a matter outside dimensions) and the chance of using the extra torpedo tubes,^[7] which would hardly be theirs except by virtue of luck and very superior handling. Is not this but a way of saying that to advocate relatively moderate dimensions is to advocate leaving everything to luck? It is argued, of course, that whereas five successful torpedoes would annihilate the one squadron they would leave two ships afloat in the other. This is so: but the constructional error would rather be of too little bulk than too much—in sufficient bulk protection against the torpedo is certainly to be found. Also, since no weapon is without its antidote, the argument is to be met by the statement that if the Lord Nelsons are to be so disposed of, it simply means that the antidote has not been sufficiently sought for in them. At the same time this is undoubtedly the strongest argument advanced by the 'moderate dimensionists,' and one that would demand more examination were it possible to believe that five or six medium ships would ever be built instead of four larger ones. The money for building ships is found by a public which reckons battleships by numbers and by numbers only, and in these days when powerful voices cry out against 'bloated armaments' it would be very difficult to secure sanction for the additional ships necessary to produce the same tonnage total as the four large ones.

This particular point is one generally overlooked, but it is going to be an extremely important one in the future, as Members of Parliament prepared to argue against the vote for New British Construction increase. In the United States men with similar ideas have arisen also. These advocates of economy have one invariable method: they take the number of battleships existing (without regard to age or size) and therefrom deduce that the need for increase in numbers is comparatively small. Their arguments are directed on those who hold the national purse strings, and in the United States they already carry enough weight to have, once at least already, reduced the number of ships to be built. The direct result of such influences must be a desire on the part of those responsible for naval construction to embody the maximum of power in each unit. Such a policy will tend to increase dimensions rapidly, and render abortive any attempt at the building of medium-sized ships, even could the advantages of so many small and relatively weak units be proved.

1. Institute of Naval Architects, July, 1905.
2. Also, relatively smaller cost of upkeep.
3. Shikishima, Asahi, Hatsuse and Mikasa—the Mikasa being the same as the other three, except for the dispositions of her secondary battery.
4. See chapter on Actium and Lepanto.
5. See account of this fight in Nicholas.
6. The Maxims have been associated with such a theory.
7. The larger dimensions of the Lord Nelsons would also easily admit of fitting more torpedo tubes if deemed necessary.