Navy fleet

“ But even the best of men and ships will not make the best fleet unless trained and "tuned up" to act together; and here, in its combined manuoeuvres, lay the crowning glory of the vast Grand Fleet. One day a visitor was watching it fight a sham battle against an enemy firing big guns at long range, when up came a real enemy, in the form of a German submarine, much closer than the sham. Of course the visitor turned his glasses on the "sub" and on the destroyers racing after it, like greyhounds slipped from the leash. ”

“ View it thus, and the Royal Navy becomes no more than a symbol, the expression of a peculiar national life. Science may think of it as the tough exterior hide, the armour, like that of the dinosaurus, with which nature in the process of evolution provides her mightiest creatures. It is in fact simply the glittering shaft on the string of a powerful bow, the power is in the bow and not the arrow. Any one can see that the mere possession of a fleet cannot bestow naval power. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Histories, as they have too often been written, obscure the vision and provide a false perspective. Faithful chronicles no doubt of the red-letter days of battle, but how few and far between were the battles in our long naval wars! Too often the histories speak of the Navy as if it were a thing apart, a mere fighting instrument, and forget to tell us of the fleets behind the fleet; of the merchant sailors and the fishermen, the pioneers and the builders of our sea-supported confederacy. These "traders," it was said of the Elizabethan seamen, "escaped the notice of kings and chroniclers." ”

“ Let us transfer ourselves for the time being from the general to the particular: in other words, to the deck of a great American dreadnought, which, together with others of her type, has been detached from the Atlantic Fleet and assigned to duty with Admiral Beatty's great company of battleships and battle-cruisers. This battleship has entered the war zone, en route to a certain rendezvous, whence all the American units will proceed to their ultimate destination in company. ”

“ If we are now asked what a fighting navy should really be we must say that it should be capable of fighting upon the high seas with the navies of rival nations, and that it is the business of the technical boards of the Navy to indicate the nature and composition of the fleet required for the purpose. ”

“ It is practice that makes perfect. The original plan for mobilising the Navy for war was that on the outbreak of war you disorganised the ships already fully manned and efficient by taking a portion of the trained crew, thus impairing the efficiency of that ship, and putting them into the un-manned ships and filling up both the old and the new—the former efficient ships and those in the dockyards—with men from the Reserve. ”

“ So far as fitness for battle depended on the officers and men of the Navy itself the Grand Fleet was as nearly perfect as anything could be. Sprung from the finest race of seamen in the world, trained for a longer time than any foreigners, and belonging to what everyone for centuries has known to be the first of all the navies, the British bluejackets formed the handiest crews you could have found in any age or country. ”

“ With material of domestic manufacture at hand, it will be the duty of the government to provide the navy with a fleet of ten armored cruisers of the most approved type. These vessels would form the outer line of defence of the coast during war, and should be of such force as to be able to contend with any second-class armored vessel of other nations. ”

“ First, the Auxiliary Cruisers, which are swift merchant liners quickly armed and manned by trained Reservists, who are mostly merchant seamen and fishermen in time of peace. These cruisers do scouting and escort duty, and sometimes have a hard fight with the enemy; though they are not strong enough for regular battles between great men-of-war. Secondly, the Supply Vessels of every size and every kind, which keep the Fleet supplied with food and fuel, munitions and repairs, and everything else a great fleet needs. ”

“ Whether the fact of war is an incentive or whether American boys are adapted, through a life of competitive sport, quickly to grasp the sailorman's trade, the truth remains that in a very short space the boy who has never seen a ship develops swiftly into a bluejacket, rolling, swaggering, but none the less deft, precise, and indomitable.
"They come into the navy to fight," said one of the officers of the fleet, "and they want to get into the thick of it. ”

“ The American fleet that went round the world in 1908-09 had to depend on British colliers. And over three-fifths of all the American soldiers that went to France to fight the Germans went in British transports. Transports are any ships that can be used to carry troops, horses, motors, stores, munitions, guns, and all the other things an army needs. They come third on this list. Fourthly, come those Merchantmen which are not used by the Army or Navy because they carry on the regular oversea trade as best they can. ”

“ Taking our present condition as the basis of the calculation, it may be stated in general terms that our land forces should be increased by the addition of, say, 300,000 men in the field and those for whom call has already been made; that the Navy should be increased by a number of vessels suited to river and harbor defense, say, fifty iron-clad propellers, and a fleet of, say, ten of the most formidable war vessels to protect our commerce upon the high seas, with the requisite armaments and crews. ”

“ The transportation of 2,000,000 American troops 3,000 miles overseas, with the loss of only a few hundred lives, and without the loss of a single American troopship on the way to France, was an unparalleled achievement. From a small beginning this fleet expanded to 24 cruisers and 42 transports, manned by 3,000 officers and 41,000 men, these being augmented by 4 French men-of-war and 13 foreign merchant vessels, a grand total of 83 ships. ”

“ Since 1887 a new navy has been built. In place of the old wooden vessels it is composed of powerful steel steamers, capable of high speed and mounted with batteries of powerful modern guns. The fleet comprises the battleships, which practically are floating forts, heavily armored but capable of high speed; the cruisers, less heavily armored but of greater speed; the double-turreted monitors for harbor defense, single-turreted monitors, gunboats, torpedo-boats, torpedo-boat destroyers and submarines, besides transports, supply ships, hospital ships and colliers. ”

“ Here the French squadron joined them, their admiral bearing the white flag; the united fleet consisting of one hundred and one sail of men-of-war, besides fire-ships and tenders. Of these the English had sixty-five ships of war, carrying four thousand and ninety-two pieces of cannon, and twenty-three thousand five hundred and thirty men. ”

“ These were kept travelling to and fro convoying the coasting merchantmen, who were thus protected from British privateers and, at times, even from frigates, as well as from the attacks of British naval seamen in the small boats of the blockading squadrons. Moreover, the knowledge that a fleet of boats carrying a large gun each lay within a harbor, naturally kept the British from bringing their big ships, which needed plenty of sea-room for manœuvres, inside. ”

“ Naturally, the number and kinds of ships that need to be provided will depend on the nature of the war—whether, for instance, a very large force is to be sent to the other side of the world, to meet a powerful fleet there, or whether a sudden attack on our Atlantic coast is to be repelled. ”

“ As to the strength, the efficiency, and the sufficiency of the Navy, I am able to give you indisputable proofs. Recently, in the equinoctial season in the North Sea we have had twenty-six of the finest battleships in the world and twenty-five of the finest cruisers, some of them equal to foreign battleships, and over fifty other vessels, under eleven Admirals, and all working under a distinguished Commander-in-Chief, under very trying circumstances and in a very stormy time, and I look in vain to84 see any equal to that large Fleet anywhere. ”

“ If ships in "line ahead" all turn together to the right or left, or, to use the correct wording, alter course together eight points to starboard or port, only the leading and rear ship could use their broadsides, and only one of them at that. But a similar turn in "bow and quarter line" can be made without any loss of fire effect.
In the Great War we have not, at the time of writing, yet had a fleet action. The German Navy has shown itself most determined—to take no risks. ”

“ Cruisers are used in at least a dozen different ways. They scout. They attack and defend oversea trade. They "mother" flotillas ("little fleets") of destroyers, which are much smaller than themselves. They attack and defend the front, flank, and rear of the great lines of battle, clearing off the enemy's cruisers and destroyers and trying to get their own torpedoes home against his larger vessels. They are the eyes and ears, the scouts and skirmishers, the outposts and the watchdogs of the Fleet—swift, keen, sinewy, vigilant, and able to hit pretty hard. ”

“ Long experience of naval war has established a belief, shown by the practice of maritime powers to be unanimous, that a navy should comprise three great classes of ships, these classes admitting of much internal subdivision. In the period of the great naval wars there were ships of the line, frigates, and small craft. These are now represented by battleships, cruisers, and smaller and special-service vessels. Individuals of the first-mentioned class are intended to fight in large groups, that is to say, in fleet actions ”

“ The strategic offensive passed definitely to the Navy on February 1, 1917. U-boats and the Fleet supplemented one another to form one weapon, which was to be used in an energetic attack on England's might. Our Fleet became the hilt of the weapon whose sharp blade was the U-boat. The Fleet thus commenced its main activities during the war to maintain and defend the new form of warfare against the English Fleet. ”

“ The Navy also sees and welcomes the untold advantage given by the Nucleus Crew system of instant war readiness, as exemplified when last July all our vessels, large and small, in reserve went to sea unnoticed by the Press and engaged in fighting Manœuvres in the Channel with 200 pendants under the chief command of the Admiral of the Channel Fleet. ”

“ To set on record the formation of the ships of the new navy in divisions, squadrons or units, and to classify them here under separate headings—an easy enough matter with regular fleets constructed for definite duties—is a task of considerable difficulty with a heterogeneous fleet composed of several thousand vessels with seldom two alike. ”

“ There is to be considered, however, the moral effect of Great Britain's big fleet, which has maintained control of the seas for four years. Similarly our American fleet is regarded as the first and decisive line of defense on our shores.
Battleships, it is true, do not figure frequently in the official communiques, but none the less they are playing their part. Battleships are absolutely a necessary and vital element to every nation at war. ”

“ The fleet certainly stands to benefit by this comparatively long period of single command. It will feel the confidence born of experience in its distinguished leader, and he in turn, knowing exactly what his ships can do, need fear no check to his plans by unsuspected defects in personnel or material. Whatever the near future may bring, it is certain that the German navy will put forth its utmost effort to fulfil the hope placed in it by the nation, and those who anticipate a cheaply purchased naval victory for us are laying up a rude disappointment for themselves. ”

“ The officers were given programmes at the starboard gangway by pages in bolero and plush breeches and silk stockings. An old naval custom was revived by having side boys with lanterns.
It was the old fashioned minstrel show, with end men and jokes and songs for the first part and stunts and sketches for the second. More than 1,600 men looked on. Imagine 1,600 men seated in comfort on a quarter deck! My, how the ships of the navy have grown! The 12-inch guns were tilted down and seats covered with flags built on them. ”

“ You have a war—a naval war—going on over the whole of the seas—war in the Channel, war in the Atlantic, war in the Pacific, war in the Mediterranean, war round Egypt, war in the Adriatic, war in Mesopotamia, war at Salonika, and day by day the Navy is called upon to supply the material for carrying on all these wars. ”

“ The German navy, as is well known, was founded as a branch of the army, and its early development proceeded on distinctly military lines. Until the present Emperor came to the Throne the head of the Admiralty was always an army officer, and it followed that, in so far as the different conditions permitted, the strategy and tactics of the fleet were brought into line with those of the land forces. Ships were regarded primarily as units for coast defence, in the most limited sense of the word. ”