Naval strategy

“ Whatever the nature of the war in which we are engaged, whether it be limited or unlimited, permanent and general command of the sea is the condition of ultimate success. The only way of securing such a command by naval means is to obtain a decision by battle against the enemy's fleet. ”

“ Now, no study of naval strategy can be thoroughly satisfactory to a naval officer unless it assists him practically to decide what should be done in order to make the naval forces of his country, including himself, better in whatever will conduce to victory in the next war. ”

“ Many books have been written on strategy, meaning strategy as applied to armies, but very few books have been written on naval strategy. The obvious reasons are that armies in the past have been much larger and more important than navies; that naval men have only recently had the appliances on board ship for writing on an extensive scale ”

“ If the object of naval warfare is to control communications, then the fundamental requirement is the means of exercising that control. Logically, therefore, if the enemy holds back from battle decision, we must relegate the battle-fleet to a secondary position, for cruisers are the means of exercising control; the battle-fleet is but the means of preventing their being interfered with in their work. Put it to the test of actual practice. In no case can we exercise control by battleships alone. ”

“ Captain Mahan, in his “Influence of Sea Power upon History,” has pointed out that, while naval tactics vary with the improvements in the motive power and armament of fleets, the basic principles of naval strategy do not. They are as enduring as the order of nature. ”

“ Hence the importance of realising the distinction between the two generic forms of naval activity. In the hurry and stress of war confusion between them is easy. By keeping a firm grip upon the difference we can see at least what we are doing. We can judge how far any given operation that may be called for is a sacrifice of security to exercise, how far such a sacrifice may be justified, and how far the one end may be made to serve the other. ”

“ Most of the books on naval strategy go into the subject historically, and analyze naval campaigns, and also describe those measures of foresight whereby nations, notably Great Britain, have established bases all over the world and built up great naval establishments. ”

“ Now to have achieved all this, while at the same time containing the German High Seas Fleet in the North Sea—and so containing it that not even a single squadron was able to break through on to our lines {46} of commerce—is the best witness to the fundamental rightness of our initial naval strategy; although the test of war immediately emphasized what was then our chief need—an even larger number, such were our manifold requirements, of fast battle-cruisers. ”

“ We have seen how, owing to the special conditions of naval warfare, extraneous necessities intrude themselves which make it inevitable that operations for exercising command should accompany as well as follow operations for securing command. War being, as it is, a complex sum of naval, military, political, financial, and moral factors, its actuality can seldom offer to a naval staff a clean slate on which strategical problems can be solved by well-turned syllogisms. The naval factor can never ignore the others. ”

“ At sea the main conception is avoiding decisive action by strategical or tactical activity, so as to keep our fleet in being till the situation develops in our favour. In the golden age of our navy the keynote of naval defence was mobility, not rest. The idea was to dispute the control by harassing operations, to exercise control at any place or at any moment as we saw a chance, and to prevent the enemy exercising control in spite of his superiority by continually occupying his attention. ”

“ Perhaps also our leading minds do not realize the intellectual requirements of the higher realms of the naval art, or comprehend what the examples of Alexander, Cæsar, Napoleon, Nelson, and Farragut prove: that, in the real crises of a nation's life her most valuable asset is the trained skill in strategy that directs the movements of her forces. ”

“ We cannot choose on purely naval considerations. In naval warfare, however great may be our desire to concentrate our effort on the enemy's main forces, the ulterior object will always obtrude itself. ”

“ We engage in exercising command whenever we conduct operations which are directed not against the enemy's battle-fleet, but to using sea communications for our own purposes, or to interfering with the enemy's use of them. Such operations, though logically of secondary importance, have always occupied the larger part of naval warfare. Naval warfare does not begin and end with the destruction of the enemy's battle-fleet, nor even with breaking his cruiser power. ”

“ Operating the naval machine in war means practically operating the active fleet in such a way as to cause victories to occur, to cause the fleet to enter each battle under as favorable conditions as practicable, and to operate the other activities of the navy in such a way that the fleet will be efficiently and promptly supplied with all its needs. Strategy employs tactics and logistics to bring these things to pass ”

“ And while our vessels and our fighting men are playing their part on the high seas the counsel of our trained technical experts is eagerly sought and constantly employed by the admiralties of the Allied nations. When the naval history of this war is given to the world in freest detail we shall know just how much our officers have had to do with the strategy of operations adopted by all the Entente navies. ”

“ The truth is, that in all the larger achievements of sea power—those, that is, to which a combination of naval and military force is indispensable—it is impossible to disengage the influence of one of these factors on the final issue from that of the other, and perhaps idle to attempt do to so. ”

“ No change in weapons or method of propulsion can alter the general principles of naval warfare. But this may be fairly advanced, that increased rapidity of movement, improved communications with distant stations, and augmented resources in war material, all tell in the favour of the stronger navy, whether for attack or defence. ”

“ They show clearly that if we would have a navy fitted to carry on war, we must give some recognition to officers on the ground of merit, either by the advancement of the best, or, what amounts to nearly the same thing, by the elimination of the least deserving; that we must give them a real training for war in modern ships and with modern weapons; that the direction of the naval establishment, in so far as it has naval direction, must be given unity of purpose, and the purpose to which it must be directed is fighting efficiency ”

“ A Power might command the surface of the sea against the surface force of an enemy, and do so more absolutely than had ever happened before, and yet see that command brought, for its main purposes, almost to nothing by a new naval force, from which, though naval ships could defend themselves, they seemingly could not defend the carrying and travelling ships, upon which the life of the nation and the continuance of its military effort on land depended. ”

“ In a war which is both naval and continental, as in the present war, command of the sea means much more than the power to deny the gain and comfort of sea supplies. The side that is defeated at sea, or avoids fighting for fear of defeat, may lose not only everything which can come to it directly or indirectly from the use of ships, but will suffer from the added disadvantage that a military use can be made of sea communications in the enemy’s possession. ”

“ The offensive in naval war, as has been said, is the function of the sea-going navy—of the battle-ships, and of the cruisers of various sizes and purposes, including sea-going torpedo-vessels capable of accompanying a fleet, without impeding its movements by their loss of speed or unseaworthiness. Seaworthiness, and reasonable speed under all weather conditions, are qualities necessary to every constituent of a fleet ”

“ For the battle-ships designed for naval operations in European waters great offensive and defensive powers and evolutionary qualities are essential, [2] while the highest sea-going qualities, including habitability, are, in the opinion of some, less essential. For sea-going battle-ships offensive and defensive strength must be partially sacrificed in order to secure unquestionable sea-worthiness. ”

“ A modern fleet consists of many units of different types—battleships, battle-cruisers, light cruisers, destroyers and submarines. Before I relinquished the command of the Grand Fleet, large sea-going submarines of high speed, vessels of the "K" class, had been built to accompany the surface vessels to sea. It is very essential that senior officers should have every opportunity of studying tactical schemes in which various classes of ships and kinds of weapons are employed. In considering the future of the Navy it is impossible to ignore aircraft. ”

“ The control of ocean communications, or the command of the sea, being the end of naval warfare, and its acquisition being practicable only by the assumption of a vigorous offensive, it follows as a matter of course that we must have a strong and in all respects efficient mobile navy. This is the fundamental condition on which the continued existence of the British Empire depends. It is thoroughly well known to every foreign Government, friendly or unfriendly. The true objective in naval warfare is the enemy's navy. ”

“ But in this war game, they bring the fleet out for manœuvres and they play out their problems in naval tactics like a great big match of chess, with dreadnaughts and destroyers and submarines for the pieces and the whole wide ocean for their board. They divide up into two fleets and each one tries to destroy the other. There’s no real sinking, you understand, but, for instance, a torpedo-boat tries to creep up to a battleship in the dark, and send up a rocket to show that she’s supposed to have fired a torpedo, then if she’s near enough for an undoubted hit, why that vessel is counted as sunk. ”

“ Here again we may discern some of the larger implications of that potent and far-reaching agency of naval warfare, the command of the sea. If a belligerent not aiming at the command of the sea, and having no sufficient naval force wherewithal to secure it, thinks to crush his enemy by directing sporadic attacks on his commerce, he will, if history is any guide, soon find out his mistake. His naval forces available for this purpose, are, by the hypothesis, inferior to those of the enemy. ”

“ Our ships yonder are materially new, the products almost of yesterday, but really they are old, centuries old; they are the expression of a naval soul working, fermenting, always growing through the centuries, always seeking to express itself in machinery. Naval war is an art, the art of men, and where in the world will one find men like ours, officers like ours? ”

“ The Navy The peace and security of the Republic, and the maintenance of its rightful influence among the nations of the earth, demand a naval power commensurate with its position and responsibility. We therefore favor the continued enlargement of the navy and a complete system of harbor and seacoast defences. ”

“ I must not be thought, however, to admit, for one single instant, that our navy should give us no anxiety. As long as France remains at peace, and spends upon her navy such enormous sums as she has been spending during the last few years, she will be sufficiently near to us in naval power to make our position somewhat doubtful; make it depend, that is, upon how the different new inventions may turn out in time of war. ”

“ In this, as in all the warfare of the coming time, imaginative foresight, a perpetual alteration of tactics, a perpetual production of unanticipated devices, will count enormously. Other things being equal, victory will rest with the force mentally most active. What type of ship may chance to be prevalent when the great naval war comes is hard guessing, but I incline to think that the naval architects of the ablest peoples will concentrate more and more upon speed and upon range and penetration, and, above all, upon precision of fire. ”

“ The endeavor to establish a base and the opposing effort to prevent it, will offer many opportunities for excellent work on both sides. Practically all the elements of naval force will be engaged, and events on the largest possible scale may be expected. The operations will naturally be more extended both in time and distance than in the case of a direct attack upon our coast, and therefore the task of logistics will be greater. Actual battle between large forces; minor engagements among aircraft, scouts, submarines, and destroyers ”

“ And, if statesmen told us that our naval force was large enough, and that it was in a state of high efficiency, and ready for war, we felt no obligation to ask what war meant, in what efficiency consisted, or how its existence could be either presumed or proved. ”

“ When the gallantry of the action with such a force, under numerous galling batteries, and the intricacy of the navigation amidst dangerous rocks, at the very mouth of the enemy’s harbour, are taken into consideration, the performance of so important a service, while it reflects the highest honor upon the courage, skill, and extraordinary management of all concerned, must be acknowledged to have added fresh lustre to the naval annals of Great Britain. ”

“ They adopt every improvement in rig, in motor, in weapons, but they fundamentally believe that the best stratagem in naval war, is to lay your ship close alongside of the enemy's ship, and bring all your guns to bear on him, until you or he go to the bottom. ”