HMS Defence

“ Most of the Naval Militia are now in condition to render immediate service of a very valuable kind in what may be called the second line of defence. They could operate signal stations, help handle torpedoes and mines, officer and man auxiliary cruisers, and assist in the defence of points which are not covered by the army. There are numbers of advanced bases which do not come under the present scheme of army coast defence, and which would have to be defended, at any rate during the first weeks of war, by bodies of Naval Militia ”

“ In strengthening our Navy, God forbid that it should imply in any way that we threatened other countries—just the reverse—for, in order to be at peace, we must be strong. Therefore, the best policy is to strengthen our first line of defence—the Navy. I hope the motto of which our Volunteers are so proud may ever be retained by the Navy ”

“ Not so should the true maxim, that the British navy was the first line of defence, have been interpreted. As in all military campaigns, the front of operations of a powerful fleet should be pushed as far towards the enemy as is consistent with the mutual support of the various detachments, and with secure communication with their base. ”

“ The sudden and remarkable advantages which this country has experienced from a small naval armament, sufficiently prove the utility of its establishment. As it respects the guarding of our coast, the protection of our trade, and the facility of safely transporting the means of territoral defence to every part of our maritime frontier, an adequate naval force must be considered as an important object of national policy. Nor do we hesitate to adopt the opinion, that, whether negotiations with France are resumed or not, vigorous preparations for war will be alike indispensable. ”

“ Four flotilla cruisers, seventy-four destroyers and torpedo-boats, and eighteen submarines are placed under the command of the Admiral of Patrols for the defence of the East Coast from the Shetlands to Dover; less than 100 vessels and more than 600 miles of sea front. It is quite impossible with such a small force to maintain a regular patrol, or still less a line of observation. These flotillas are not intended for observation, but to attack. ”

“ The gravest reasons can be urged against any measure which might fetter this country in adjusting its principal naval defence of battleships, not solely in accordance with the variations of her policy and the number of probable battleships which may threaten her, but also in the provision of the requisite margin of safety against the accidents of navigation and possible successful operations on the part of torpedo vessels, submarine boats, and submarine mines. To state that naval campaigns are decided by battleships does not preclude the possibility of some losses through other causes. ”

“ The superior cheapness of naval defence seems to me to be satisfactorily established, and I am next to prove that the force proposed—I mean twelve seventy-fours and twenty frigates—are sufficient to protect us in our own seas, and defend our ports and harbors against the naval power of Great Britain. The first evidence that is offered in support of this proposition, is the opinion of naval men; and if the representations of any man may be relied upon with confidence, so far, at least, as that they are not founded in deception, I believe those of a sailor may be. ”

“ The first duty of our English navy is, and always has been, offensive, as well as defensive. In times of peace we have been accustomed to regard our Navy as our first line of defence, and this is a perfectly accurate description of its functions. But it is obvious that these functions have always been different from, and in most periods independent of, what is generally understood by the term coast defences. ”

“ The term coast defence is perhaps, in a certain sense, a misnomer. The defence of the most important of our commercial harbours against an attack from the sea could not be effectually conducted by a force composed exclusively of men trained for the land service alone. The approach to all the great ports of the United 5Kingdom from the sea involves the navigation of extensive estuaries, where floating batteries, and armed rafts, and the use of torpedoes, are essential to a complete defence, and would in point of fact effectually prevent the nearer approach of a hostile fleet. ”

“ There could be no question of the former alternative on account of the danger from submarines, defence against which was the work of the destroyers, and also because the destroyers were indispensable for battle. The Fleet was therefore dependent upon the radius of action of the destroyers. The appearance of the submarine as a defensive weapon has made it a necessity in modern times to screen the approach of a fleet with destroyers. ”

“ M. said, these vessels would be the foundation of a future Navy. He was for shaping our means of defence to the means of offence employed against us by other nations; for until the European nations became wise enough to cease from war, it was necessary to provide means of defence against their attacks. [Pg 68] He should, therefore, always give his support to every means of national defence. He wished our nation to stand upon a respectable footing as a nation, since the most magnanimous conduct was no security against the attacks of foreign powers. ”

“ The arming of merchantmen, a preliminary and successful measure, was necessary to drive the U-boat below the surface. There, capable only of torpedo attack, it loses half its observing, half its striking powers. But the true defence is a vigorous offensive, which is the business not of merchantmen but of patrol and fighting ships. They are at work in daily increasing numbers, they employ new and ingenious devices, they are happy and confident. ”

“ Sixteen of the eighteen battleships and battle-cruisers of the Dreadnought type, the fifteen protected cruisers, and the sixty destroyers, with a group of submarines, which the Board over which Mr. McKenna presided secured, constituted the spearhead of the British Fleet when the crisis came and war had to be declared against Germany in defence of our plighted word. ”

“ Whilst, therefore, those risks might well be run in support of a real, strenuous, and powerful endeavour to wrench the coast-line from the enemy's grasp, the Admiralty felt that the Navy could not afford to sacrifice strength in hanging about day after day exposed to such risks, in the sole hope of rendering some slight help to an attack which had no great or decisive object in view. ”

“ They were always reliable advisers to the commanders of squadrons and ships.
Our view of the whole situation and the War Orders issued to the Fleet made it imperative to get at the outset data as to the movements of the enemy. While the North Sea islands and the estuaries were being put into a state of defence, the primary requirement was security against surprise. The battleship squadron and battle-cruisers (at their anchorages) used these few days to prepare for action. ”

“ In addition to doing signally effective work in hunting down the submarine, and in protecting ocean commerce, our war-ships have relieved England and France of the necessity of looking out for raiders and submarines in South Atlantic waters: we have sent to the Grand Fleet, among other craft, a squadron of dreadnoughts and superdreadnoughts whose aggregate gun-power will tell whenever the German sea-fighters decide to risk battle in the North Sea ”

“ In the case of coast-defence vessels the conditions are changed, enabling in them the full development of both offensive and defensive properties. These vessels are assigned to duty on the coast: they must be as fit to keep the sea as are the armored cruisers, and they must be able to fight their guns in all weathers that the armored cruiser can fight; but as they do not require the coal endurance nor the speed of the ship that is to keep the sea for lengthened periods, the weight saved in coal and machinery can be utilized in battery and armor. ”

“ As conditions of visibility, in the North Sea particularly, are frequently such as to make fighting89 difficult beyond a range of 10,000 yards, and as modern fleets are invariably accompanied by very large numbers of destroyers, whose main duty is to attack with torpedoes the heavy ships of the enemy, it will be recognized how great becomes the responsibility of the Admiral in command of a fleet, particularly under the conditions of low visibility to which I have referred. As soon as destroyers tumble upon a fleet within torpedo range the situation becomes critical for the heavy ships. ”

“ In war the British Navy has three prominent duties to discharge. It has to protect our maritime trade, to keep open the communications between the different parts of the empire, and to prevent invasion. If we command the sea these duties will be discharged effectually. As long as we command the sea the career of hostile cruisers sent to prey on our commerce will be precarious, because command of the sea carries with it the necessity of possessing an ample cruiser force. ”

“ Once grasp what are the possibilities open to the enemy’s armed forces; once realize the scope the mine and torpedo possess; once analyze their influence both on strategy and on tactics, with the new problems that they create both for cruising force and for naval artillery in action, and it becomes exceedingly clear what it is that your own fleet must be prepared to do. Had these things been realized at any time between 1911 and 1914, should we have had our own naval bases unprotected against submarine attack? ”

“ A coming enemy would endeavor to keep his objective a close secret, and even to mislead us; so that our fleet would have to take a position out at sea, perhaps far away, which would leave our bases open to attack by the enemy fleet or at least exposed to raids.
The most effective local defense of a naval base is a combination of mine-fields and heavy guns, which also give protection to which the wounded vessels can retire, as the German vessels did after the North Sea battle. ”

“ Let us now examine briefly what practical methods of defence a modern warship has against submarine attacks. Great speed is undoubtedly a surface ship’s most reliable defence; and when combined with a frequent change of course, would greatly reduce the chances 149of a successful under-water attack. Should hostile submarines be on the line of advance they would not know whether to wait and chance the enemy approaching within torpedo range or whether to run to starboard or port. ”

“ The Fleet Marine Force evolved in 1933, therefore, to fill the need for a corps of highly-trained amphibious specialists capable of carrying out a major ship-to-shore assault against modern defensive weapons. ”

“ The whole of the shore and off-shore islands were full of big guns in strong forts—and remember that you can sink a fleet, though you can't sink a coast—while the waters were full of mines and submarines.
Moreover, in destroyers, which are as dangerous out at sea as they are round a base, the German "High Sea Fleet" began with no less than eighty-eight against the forty-two in the British "Grand Fleet." The British had so many narrow seaways to defend that they could not spare Jellicoe nearly enough light cruisers or destroyers. ”

“ And now, on the memorable morning of Wednesday, the 31st May, the First and Second Battle-cruiser Squadron, three light-cruiser squadrons, with attendant destroyers, were ploughing eastward across the North Sea, with the knowledge that the hard-hitting Battle Fleet, together with a formidable array of cruisers and destroyers, was some distance to the nor'ard, ready, at the first wireless call, to complete the toils thrown around the German fleet should the latter, lured into a sense of false security, dare to leave the mine-fields of Heligoland. ”

“ The advantage of such an invention when the war zone is filled with submarines waiting for a chance for pot shots at craft is obvious.
The Navy Department, in short, has neglected nothing that would tend to enhance the safety of our ships on the sea, and many valuable schemes have been applied. But when all is said and done these defensive elements are and, it seems, must remain subsidiary to the protection as applied from without, the protection of swift destroyers with their depth-bombs, their great speed, and their ability quickly to manoeuvre. ”

“ Now every new engine of war—and as a long-range weapon the modern gun is such—creates a double problem.73 There is the art of using it in attack; there is the art of countering it when it is in the enemy’s hands. With every new development, then, the Navy has to learn a new offensive and a new defensive. In the matter of guns, there is but one defensive that can be perfectly successful. It is to develop a method of using them so rapid, so insistent, and so accurate that the enemy’s guns will be out of action before they can be employed against us. ”

“ The new enemy who now appeared on the farther side of the Atlantic was not considered formidable. In the British Navy there were 145,000 men. In the United States Navy the number of officers, seamen, and marines available for ocean service was less than 4500—an insignificant numerical addition to the enemies with whom we were already contending. The subsequent and rapid increase in the American personnel to 18,000 shows the small extent to which it could be considered a 'regular' force, its permanent nucleus being overwhelmingly outnumbered by the hastily enrolled additions. ”

“ But he must add a note, that the units of the Battle Cruiser Fleet were less heavily armoured than their opponents! The obsession of the defensive idea is obvious. “The enemy constantly turned away and opened the range under cover of destroyer attacks and smoke screens.” “The German Fleet appeared to rely very much on torpedo attacks, which were favoured by low visibility, and by the fact that we had arrived in the position of a ‘following’ or ‘chasing’ fleet. ”