A PLEA IN DEFENSE OF PAPER-WORK
By Lieut. C. C. Carmine, U. S. Navy
Opinions upon the relative merits of this or that system of training for the attainment of any given object or state of efficiency must be admitted in our naval service to be of a widely diverging nature. Take for instance the contemplation of a change in the present system of promotion, or the value of speed as compared with armor, the strategy and tactics of Jutland, the naval policy of Britain during the war—all these and many others have oft times been subjects for after-dinner discussion in the mess room; that is, when the presence of visitors does not necessitate the courteous dismissal of shop-talk.
Now gather together a group of executive officers, navigating officers, gunnery officers, first lieutenants and engineer officers and see how easy it is for one's, point of view to be colored by the particular duties over which he has cognizance. To be more specific, suppose someone at the gathering were to suggest the desirability of doing away with the paper-work connected with target practices; the reports, the computation of scores, the suggestions—what would be the consensus of opinion?
It seems that when Battleship Division Nine first joined up with the British grand fleet, to form a separate fighting unit in the eventuality of a clash with the rehabilitated high seas fleet, informal target practices demonstrated the inferiority of our own vessels in gunnery. This has been a persistent rumor throughout our service which it seems has been neither affirmed nor denied. At least any doubts about the comparative efficiency of those vessels has been dispelled with the knowledge that we were not lax in installing new and needed fire control appliances, in adopting- British contrivances and methods where demonstrably better, and by ultimately rivaling and even surpassing The performances of the crack vessels of His Majesty's royal marine. The outstanding feature of that remarkable improvement in a great many of the minds of our own officers lies in the fact that but little detailed data was taken and no searching analyses made of results. Ships simply went out and fired and were observed if practicable. The British vessels, so it is said, would merely offset their deflection and fire at a neighboring vessel as though it were a target; never bothering about observers, times, check sighting, safety precautions and the like. If this were all true it might indeed be considered no less than marvelous that progress and improvement should simply have resulted from the successive shooting of guns without any data or analyses upon which to base a comparison of dispersions of guns, patterns of batteries, efficiencies of fire-control parties, etc.
It is known, however, that the British did have a modified system for recording observations of target practices in use during and before the war. Their dispersion under service conditions is less than ours and this fact was only established by the aid of definite information obtained during firing. If they did not have an elaborate system such as our own, looking at the same question from another angle, who is to say that the introduction of a great number or all of its features into the British navy during the period of gunnery training before 1914 might not have been very desirable judging by later eventualities? Would a personnel which had been indoctrinated with the necessity for an unqualified observance of safety precautions, an item which is observed rigidly in our own service both as regards omission and commission, have suffered the loss of a Queen Mary, an Invincible, and Indefatigable f Might an analysis of plotting and fire control methods by competent observing parties in reports to the admiralty and the dissemination of this information to the service in years preceding June 1, 1916, have caused the British vessels to straddle on the first or second salvo instead of being smothered by enemy projectiles immediately after opening fire with the consequent loss by gunfire of two capital ships before the battle had half begun? Let it be remembered that we are not as yet thoroughly conversant with the German methods of preparation for battle, their system of target practices and competitive gunnery training, but we do know that their shooting was quite remarkable in the opening stages of the greatest of modern naval engagements.
For the benefit of those who insist that a possible hit or miss method of recording gunnery progress has produced better results than one having the features of statistical comparison our own Rear Admiral Sims, a great admirer of the British service, has written much which tends to confirm the merit of the latter. He has compared the shooting of the British ships at Coronel, Falkland Islands and Dogger Banks quite unfavorably with the results of our own target practices during the interim. It is safe to state that an analysis of Jutland would further support a bias in favor of our system. From the reports of our own target practices it is known that our fire control is far from perfect but it took an actual encounter with the enemy to demonstrate the same fact to our friendly rivals across the sea.
Each and every vessel that has been in commission any length of time has these reports, some as far back as 1910—data capable of analysis for the detection of errors, but it is known that in many cases little or no attempt is made to make use of them in a comprehending manner. What progress has been made along the lines of record-keeping -has been the outgrowth of the efforts of a few who have understood its value and have refused to be swerved from the path by the cries for mercy of the "practical" men. At the present time when the idea of a system of taking and compiling data is gaining a little ground in the service and is being firmly lodged in the minds of the thinking officers, when the office of the Division of Gunnery Exercises and Engineering Performances is beginning to perform work of real value there arises the slogan "Cut out the paper-work!" The feeling is not wide-spread but it lies dormant in the minds of many ready to follow a leadership which coincides with their views. Organized and spurred to action this majority might easily cause the abolition of our present system. It is too bad that they would not investigate the pro and con of the question before becoming dogmatically prejudiced, but it was ever thus. There are always thousands of sheep to one shepherd, hundreds of eight-hour workers to one eight-minute thinker.
Farragut said "Damn the torpedoes; full speed ahead!" but he must have chuckled when he knew that the state of the tide and the position of his vessels was such that there could never a mine have touched them. Careful thought and planning based upon accurate records brought to him by his reconnoitering party had formed the groundwork for his decision to attack. Does anyone doubt that Dewey knew the state of the defenses at Manila Bay and the condition of the Spanish fleet before forcing an entrance? Records! Records! Records!
It has been assumed by a great many well-meaning officers that the only people under Heaven's blue sky who have any interest in all the sheets and sheets that go into the department after a practice are the ordnance highbrows who pore over a layout of cross-section paper or maneuver a slide rule with consummate skill. There has been and is a tendency to believe that the recording of all the data taken at a practice is purely and simply for the accommodation of the swivel-chair people in Washington. The extreme of this view is registered in the "wolf" cry of "bureaucracy." This fact is evidenced so many times in the demeanor of officers and men on an observing party who perhaps are required to arise at five-thirty a.m. in order to record the time of the whistle, or the first salvo, as some would have it "the number of guns in a turret." If those persons ever took the trouble to compile the records and scores and analyze the data with a systematic effort to establish the reason for each shot or salvo missing the target and had to deduce results from a set of statistics which, compared to the famous Labyrinth, are but as a pebble to the Rock of Gibraltar—they might be inclined slightly towards a spirit of tolerance.
In the first place a person with the above-mentioned restricted viewpoint does not thoroughly understand the real value of the office and personnel who compile and disseminate the information on gunnery performances of vessels on active duty. They do not appreciate the importance of the functions of this central statistical office. It is from there that are published the results of practices during previous years so that standards may be set which will measure the success or failure of a practice of today. That is the raison d’être, as the strategists would have it, of this office—to publish comparisons, stimulate progress through the age-old method of competition. If all this is conceded, a fair question might be asked as to how a fair and accurate estimate of a vessel's, division's, or fleet's gunnery performances can be made unless there is some authentic data taken? Authentic data can only be obtained on the ships, at the guns, the instant they fire or the instant the projectiles land.
The importance of records and information is amply illustrated in a consideration of international, business and social relations. It takes years and tens of years, the devotion of the lifetimes of scientists and scholars to the collection of data, to methods of research and analysis, in order that the truth of a proposition may be established. Their laboratories, libraries, and studies are central offices in which statistics are sorted and stored for reference in the struggle for proof of a theory. Witness a few quotations and concrete illustrations.
As Napoleon lay on his deathbed he is reputed to have uttered the following: "Let my son often read and reflect on history. This is only true philosophy. Let him read and meditate on the wars of the greatest captains. This is the only means of rightly learning the science of war." Reports of target practices are condensed gunnery histories and histories are records in their broadest sense.
Here are significant quotations on the subject of records taken from "Remarks on Full Caliber Practice of the Second Battle Squadron Grand Fleet":
"Records annihilate time and space, bring back the past and give us dependable glimpses into the future."
"Records warn of wrong methods, unwise procedure, and inefficient operations."
"Records check against extremes."
"Records quickly tell the direction and rapidity of progress."
"Records furnish a basis for all future work."
The correct conduct of military and naval strategy and tactics is so frequently a matter of the victor's superior knowledge of the factors necessary to achieve success as learned from a study of previous similar or related problems. You have heard the claim of Admiral Yon Tirpitz. Had the German strategists properly appreciated the principles unearthed by Mahan in his comprehensive treatises of naval history, and had they adhered to an offensive-defensive campaign on the sea in 1914 and under the sea in 1915-16 who can say what may have been the results? The German staffs had learned the real significance of sea-power and had constructed a truly efficient service in keeping with their national aspirations but there were evidently salient features in the application of sea-power which are made very evident in a close scrutiny of Mahan's works, that the Teutons had neglected. This is an example of the possible uses of records on a large scale, being international in its scope.
Science furnishes ample proof of the value of records. The toil and worry of a lifetime were spent in the collection of data for the establishment of Darwin's theory of the origin of species. He had to cross continents and explore unknown regions in the interests of research to convince himself and the world of the truth of his hypotheses. Every avenue of doubt had to be closed by conclusive evidence furnished in the collection of statistics on birds and beasts of the earth, on records illimitable until any doubts were buried under a huge mass of proof.
Business furnishes examples almost too numerous to relate of the importance placed upon records. The modern tendency towards standardization and the division of labor has made it necessary to settle on the true value of a day's work. Time and motion studies have been inducted into factories for the purpose of cutting down time and establishing a standard from which wages may be adjusted for a good or fair day's work. Elaborate bonus schemes have been inaugurated in plants and factories for the stimulation of production and the reduction of unit costs of articles. These extra compensation plans and rulings on what shall constitute a fair day's work are based upon the recording of accurate data on the processes involved and the results achieved over a given period. Having established a standard, records are continually kept with the idea in view of modifying standards, changing the systems, increasing production.
Cost finding in business has demanded a strict accountancy of every minute detail which might enter into the manufacture of a product from the raw to the finished state. Regular departments have been organized with special employees, men of brains drawing down more than substantial salaries, to record and analyze statistics on costs. The literature published on cost finding nowadays is enormous. The business executive is daily confronted with estimates and masses of figures from his cost finding department compiled to prove where this or that item of cost may be reduced or eliminated and profits increased. Business is absolutely shackled, under the influence of statistics.
Verily, verily it is an age of records. The world has come to recognize the tremendous value of detailed information regarding those incidents of lives, those illustrations of steady growth which have characterized progress from the Paleolithic to our present "golden age of materialism."
To return to the immediate perspective, the subject of gunnery and target practice reports. We have stated the purpose of assembling and analyzing these in the department to be that of registering comparisons between different units and the setting of standards; but they render a yet more immediate service directly to the vessel which has completed a practice and which retains a copy of the results on file. This fact it is believed has been somewhat overlooked. The average idea of preparation for a practice in only too many cases is to drill and drill diligently up to the day of the event, if possible observe other vessels fire first and learn their mistakes, correct these over night; then shoot, make up the other ship's scores and forward as soon as possible, receive and correct your own scores and forward hurriedly; then cut another notch on the desk and consign the memory of that practice to the shores of the river Styx. The next year the same procedure and so on. Plow few ever go back to those reports of previous years, pick out, sort, and compile the glaring mistakes which spelled only partial success in one practice and rotten failure in another?
What is the specific value of the copy of the report of scores which remains aboard a vessel other than to carry out the function of any record? What else but to point out the reasons for each and every salvo missing the target, which is the ultimate aim of records in gunnery anyway? Yet one officer after another will wonder indefinitely for years to come why his ship didn't shoot in such and such a practice when it is put down in black and white if he would only take the trouble to search it out. At this point let it be stated emphatically that the impression is not meant to be created that the causes of misses will be found correct as assigned by the board of observers who make up the reports. That would indeed be a millennium. One only has to witness a board of observers and score-keepers rushing through the papers of a short range battle or director practice to understand how closely they oft times analyze a miss. It is too frequently a case of "cause unknown" when the factors which caused the failure to hit are not perfectly evident. At the same time score compilers have a justifiable grievance, for after a ship has once fired and accurate data at a gun or station has not been taken it is many times impossible to be definitely sure of any reason for a miss.
The reports of scores, after final completion, must be examined and analyzed by the ship which has fired and which is the interested party to definitely and conclusively establish the reasons for misses, whether it be pointing, training, sight setting, plotting, range-finding, communications or any of the host of other details which spell failure to hit. These errors must be collated and kept on file for future reference and comparison. The continuous shifting of the officer personnel necessitates the keeping of permanent records on board vessels to enable newcomers to perceive the mistakes of predecessors. Records are on hand on every vessel, but are they used? The question is not one of their existence but of their use. Nine times out of ten what is considered to be the one panacea for poor gunnery? Drill! Drill! Drill! It is believed that if one quarter of the time placed upon intensive drill were devoted by the officers, who are the planners and thinkers, to a study of other ship's gunnery performances; to the acquisition of knowledge on the proving methods and the statistics on guns at the proving grounds; to the data on the accuracy and probability of gunfire; and to a thorough, conscientious, painstaking analysis of each and every report of target practice of their particular ships, our naval gunnery would jump by leaps and bounds.
If you would look further for proof of the value of these reports and the feasibility of their use in preparing for target practice and battle, attention is called to the recent short range director practice of a vessel of the Atlantic fleet, the methods of preparation, and the execution. For years it had been assumed on this vessel that the guns of the main battery had different ballistics; at least different corrections had been used for the separate turrets on previous practices. A careful study of the reports of practices revealed the error of this assumption; in other words the idea of excessive dispersion between guns or between turrets could about ninety per cent of the time be attributed to the functioning of the personnel in the operation of the material. The errors which had been made over a period of eight years were compiled and summarized and there was presented an imposing array of glaring mistakes committed right on board the vessel; not by the ammunition depot, the powder manufactory, the designer of projectiles, or the proving ground experts.
What better way to convince a spotter that it is practically useless to spot shots in range and deflection in short range battle practice and in deflection in short range director practice than by presenting him with figures which prove that during the previous seven or eight years fifty per cent of the spots given on one particular vessel were reversed on immediately succeeding shots or salvos and that an additional twenty-five per cent were not necessary as spots at all?
The best way of convincing a set of pointers of the importance of pointing at the center of the bull's-eye is to summarize the misses over a given period, coupled with a comprehensive explanation of the value of hits in the computation of ship and gun scores.
Plotting—praises be! If ships would only break forth their antiquated records and analyze them for the purpose of learning how rangefinder ranges and ballistic corrections checked on each shot or salvo with sight bar ranges and hitting gun ranges the results would be surprising, if not astonishing. How some ships can fire a poor practice and the plotting room get a clean slate is a mystery—no, not a mystery but rather a humorous paradox. There was once a fleet gunnery officer who appreciated the fact that too little attention was being paid to the repetition of errors in the plotting room; and so he often made it a point to observe the target practices of the different vessels coming under his cognizance—in the plotting room. The incorrect setting of convergence systems has been a very noticeable cause of misses in director fire during previous practices. A careful computation of the proper convergence for turrets checked with the settings of the system as recorded on former reports and this checked with the observations of the fall of shot on the same reports furnish ample data for the conclusion that these convergence systems are too often improperly handled.
Suppose there is a question whether it is more desirable in director practices, especially those at short range, to fire on the up, or down roll, or both. An examination of the reports with their data on roll and pitch checked against the time of salvos must furnish some information as to the augmenting or retarding of the roll by one method or the other. Such an examination for the ship in question revealed the fact that firing on the up roll on previous firings had given the vessel a decided kick on each salvo. The up-roll was chosen and the results attained in the next practice bore out this decision quite conclusively.
Probably the most important revelation made in a careful study of these reports of former gunnery exercises was the fact that if the computed ballistics had been used with more confidence and if spotting had been cut down about seventy-five per cent the vessel's hitting power and gunnery score would have increased remarkably. Excessive spotting has had the tendency to alter ballistics for different turrets when they are firing separately with consequent misses on opening salvos of succeeding turrets. In other words the spots necessary to correct the errors of one set, whether pointer or director fire, were carried through as ballistics to be applied to the following set—a practice which it is contended is incorrect. The erratic shooting sometimes resulting from this procedure has led to the assumption that turrets and guns shoot quite differently, that computing a ballistic for all guns of a battery of the same caliber with the idea of its being found correct for all guns is a useless waste of time and energy, and that it's all a matter of luck anyway. It is probably this very point of view that has made short range director fire a matter of luck. A real painstaking analysis of the reports of previous target practices, fallacious and incomplete as they sometimes are, would have established, not beyond a reasonable doubt, but would have suggested entirely different conclusions. The records are not faultless because they are not taken with perfect care, by perfect men, with a perfect idea of what they are for; but they are tremendously valuable. They at least form a working basis for the formulation of a policy, a plan. It requires a person with keen judgment and a sense of proportion to weigh the rather incomplete evidence propounded in the pages of target practice reports but there are always to be found certain luminous facts which stand out like the headlines of a yellow journal.
It must be sincerely hoped by those who appreciate the intrinsic value of records and are in accord with the principles upon which our present system of compiling and analyzing them are founded that no influence will be brought to bear to eliminate them. If the paper-work must be moderated, so be it, though it is hard to see how it is possible to obtain valuable data from any curtailment of the present system, with the possible exception of doing away with one or two superfluous sheets here and there.
If one is to concede the correctness of the views expressed in this brief treatise it is rather to be hoped that means will be taken to further instruct parties of observers in being more careful and detailed in obtaining their data. Efforts will be made to explain the importance of the link which individual observers' reports form in the chain—a chain which measures the progress while ever leading towards the real desideratum: maximum volume of effective fire at every instant when within gun range of an enemy.
In conclusion why is there not disseminated from the department or from the fleet, force or division staffs if they are truly interested in an improvement of our naval gunnery, which must at the present time be a cause of reflection in at least one fleet, why do they not publish pamphlets analyzing the faults set forth in practices, comparing results, giving forth praise or criticism where due? Ships would like to know what is considered to be a fair day's shooting under different conditions. A little advertising; a little cost finding; a little salesmanship; a little accounting.
We are not using the records we have on board and in addition the only time we hear what the other vessels are doing is when we observe them or at the end of the year when the scores are published—"and there is no health in us." Let's have the news. During the war the division with the grand fleet was a veritable circulating library of information which fact rather discounts the idea that they didn't do any of that sort of thing "on the other side," but what has happened to a system of propaganda that was once so useful in achieving results? Aren't we really trying to design a machine by the light of a Christmas candle when a mere turn of the snap switch close by would present a flood of brilliancy from the Mazda lamp overhead?