I. Introduction
The present paper comprises: first, a study of the factors which determine material excellence in order to isolate its principles; second, an examination of our existing material agencies in the light of these principles; finally, resultant suggestions for improving the agencies and their methods in order to secure higher quality of our naval material.
By quality is meant both military (functional) and operational suitability for war. By naval material is meant ships and their appurtenances. Aircraft would be included.
The reason excellence of naval material has especially engaged the writer’s attention is because it now appears to be the determining factor of naval superiority. The two other factors, namely, quantity of material and excellence of personnel, appear too rigid in character to be determinants, for reasons which follow.
In the factor of quantity of material we have been restricted by the Limitation of Armament Treaty in the major types of ships. It assures us no more than approximate numerical equality at the logical point of contact.
As regards excellence of personnel, whereas we may naively consider ourselves superior in intelligence, we should realize that our short term of enlistment necessarily renders us inferior in training. Those in a position to know, state that our industrial prosperity and the natural ambition of our youth preclude longer enlistments. The product of superior intelligence and inferior training cannot result in more than equality with the personnel of the other large navies.
Material quality, therefore, is the only unlimited variable.
II. Basic Considerations
Naval material is developed through the direct action of conception, design, and production and the indirect participation of operation and maintenance. The last two, through observing service performance of material, gain information necessary to the others. These five functions are the natural bases for further analysis, and therefore will be defined at this point.
Conception is the mental process whereby strategical, tactical, and operational requirements of the fleet are resolved into characteristics for naval material. The first phase of conception, therefore, is composition of the fleet. Characteristics of ships, which naturally develop from it, should, in turn, determine the military and operational characteristics of the elements of which ships are composed.
Design is the technical visualization of conception. It embodies the desired characteristics in a form which will permit manufacture of the material.
Production is the materialization of design, and therefore, likewise, of conception. It is the process whereby the mechanism is built, and consists not only of fabrication of the parts but their assembly and adjustment; also test of the completed device.
Maintenance is the upkeep of naval material. It involves not only keeping material in condition but keeping it up to date. Thus it includes alterations, repairs, and the care of material in operation.
Operation is the use of naval material. Essentially, this means its use at sea, in training and in war.
Operation is the competent judge of functional and operational excellence—that is, how well the material fulfills its purposes. Maintenance is the competent judge of technical excellence and to some extent, as will appear, of minor functional excellence.
Thus, the lessons learned by operation and maintenance are necessary to the progress of both conception and design.
III. Conception
Composition of the Elect.—Composition of the fleet can be properly derived only through a comprehensive study of the probable nature of our possible wars, from the standpoints of strategy, tactics and logistics, together with coordinate consideration of the trend of scientific development. These considerations enable us to work out the essential qualities and types of ships we require.
The military qualities of ships are the essential determinants of excellence of naval material because, although excellence of design and construction will intensify the quality of well conceived ships, it cannot rectify the military deficiencies of poorly conceived ones.
Factors Which Determine Composition of the Fleet.—The factors which determine composition of the fleet are of two general classes, direct and indirect.
The direct factors are tactical, strategical, and logistical in character, and may be considered in related groups. The superior group consists of the tactical handling of ships in battle and the strategical use of naval forces to attain war objectives. The weapons group, chiefly tactical in character, consists of the technique of the four essential weapons: namely, gunnery, bombing, torpedo control, and mining. The auxiliary functions group, which is both tactical and strategical in character, consists of communications, ship control, and ship propulsion. The elemental group consists of personnel, supplies, including fuel and food, and material maintenance.
The two factors comprised in the superior group are complex, involving applications of most of the simpler factors.
The superior factor of tactics tends to develop ships for tactical applications. It would classify them in two categories: namely, primary types, which are the carriers of the four essential weapons, and secondary types, which aid the tactical application or supplement the protection of the weapon carriers. Battleships, aircraft carriers (rather than aircraft themselves), torpedo vessels including submarines, and mine layers are the present-day tactical primary types. The secondary tactical types include battle cruisers, light cruisers, destroyer leaders, mine sweepers, and aircraft.
The other superior factor, strategy, tends to develop ships for strategical applications, such as scouting, distant screening, con-
The indirect factors consist of the nature of foreign fleets, war voying, and commerce destroying; and the logistic functions of supplying and maintaining a fleet, plans, scientific progress, and money.
From all foreign fleets we can learn valuable lessons, but the fleet of our most probable enemy should be the concrete basis of comparison for our fleet. It may have certain characteristics accentuated to an extent that we cannot safely overlook, or others inadequately developed, providing opportunities we should not ignore. Yet we must also provide against the possibility that we have selected the wrong fleet.
War plans are the primary guides to strategical and logistical requirements because they have regard to the peculiar problems of oceans, distances, and economic and psychological resources, as well as existing fleets of possible enemies. But here, too, we must have regard to a possible mistake in selecting the paramount war plan.
Scientific progress is the active means of material advance. It has two functions: one, to discover and develop naval applications of technical advances, the other to develop technical solutions for naval conceptive problems. It is the herald of those revolutionary material changes which sometimes confer such marked advantage on their initiators.
Money is the wherewithal for building ships. It equals the product of quantity and quality. It is on the side of the cheap weapon rather than the effective weapon; therefore it should be regarded as a misleading and negative factor. Surrender to the limitations of money is as dangerous a compromise as any.
The Agency for Determining Composition of the Fleet.—The logical organization of the agency for determining composition of the fleet is in accordance with the relations of the foregoing factors. That is, each group of factors should be represented by competent personnel. There should be six groups, as follows:
- The superior group, representing the tactical handling of naval forces and strategy.
- The weapons group, representing gunnery, bombing, torpedo control, and mining.
- The auxiliary functions group, representing ship propulsion, ship control and communications.
- The elemental group, representing personnel, supplies, and material maintenance.
- The scientific or technical group, representing naval architecture, marine engineering, ordnance engineering, electrical engineering, aeronautics, chemistry, optics, and perhaps the other branches of science.
- The financial group, representing productive and operational costs, and available funds.
These groups would provide personnel properly fitted to consider enemy fleets, war plans, and other factors not specifically indicated. The personnel in each group should consist of specialists in the several subjects covered by it. By this is not meant officers who “know it all,” but rather, trained officers who, through having specialized, will know where to look for their information and how to interpret it intelligently.
The superior group should constitute the primary motive element of the agency. It would call on the other groups for information and for assistance in working out problems of detail.
However, the minor groups should be motive in developing new conceptions within their special spheres of activity. They should present and support their respective ideas before the superior group.
Conflicting Requirements.—Conflicting demands of the minor groups for weight and space in ships, and even for special types of ships, can readily be foreseen. Even more serious conflicts can be foreseen between the rival requirements of tactics and strategy in the superior group. As will be demonstrated, these tendencies toward conflict are blessings in disguise if properly handled, and prospects of serious danger if not.
Tendencies toward conflict produce opposition. This forces each side to develop essentials and eliminate non-essentials in order to strengthen its case. It is the method of handling opposition which determines whether it shall help or harm, in its present application. There are two methods, coordination and cooperation.
Coordination versus Cooperation.—Coordination is decision by control. It enables a competent leader, after hearing all sides, to point out their respective weaknesses, and after the proponents of the conflicting views have remedied the weaknesses in their respective propositions, the leader, by virtue of his control, can reach a decision between them or prepare a composite solution. This should result in well articulated and homogeneous plans because they will have been developed by a single, fully informed mind. Coordination, therefore, implies a recognized leader.
Cooperation is decision by mutual agreement. Thus, there is no recognized leader, and the proponents of conflicting requirements function as a committee. To reach an agreement the committee members must mutually concede the points not imperative to their respective necessities, or else one member must attain virtual, though unrecognized, leadership.
Virtual leadership in a committee can result through several causes, such as energy, ability, rank or dominance of personality. The only correct one of these is ability. It is therefore evident that virtual leadership of this sort is a gamble and is unsafe to risk. One of its chief objections is that responsibility cannot be attached to an unrecognized leader.
Nor can responsibility be effectively attached to a committee as a whole, since no member can safely be held responsible for what may have been put through against his objections.
Decision by mutual concessions lacks a central idea. The determinants naturally tend to become weight, space, cost, and other concrete considerations rather than the abstract and more important ones of homogeneity and the intensification of primary qualities at the expense of minor ones. Thus, brilliance of conception generally will be lacking, the tendency being toward mediocrity.
This will be true even if the committee members are very able men. In fact, intensifying their abilities tends to lower the quality of their decisions, because increased imagination tends to project farther ahead, begetting over-development of specialties. Thus, decisions reached by an able committee tend to resemble the summation of several divergent forces to secure a resultant force which may be less than the least of them.
Conception Both Brilliant and Sound.—Conception, obviously, must be brilliant, if we are to secure excellence of naval material, but also, it must be sound. For brilliance we require decision through control, or, in other words, a leader as opposed to a committee. For soundness this solution does not appear so desirable. It may quite properly be contended that the co-existence of imagination and sound judgment in a single personality is exceptional.Perhaps the Navy is a too small organization to have always available an officer so exceptionally gifted and otherwise qualified that he could be entrusted with conception without fear of unsoundness.
There is a fortunate solution: Whereas a committee is unsatisfactory to initiate conception, it is eminently fitted to examine a completed conception for soundness. Having several points of view its members will naturally tend to interpret the conception differently. By discussion these differences will be mutually considered and other possibilities will be brought to mind. Cooperative application of imagination and intelligence now becomes highly desirable in order that a brilliant conception may be appreciatively considered and that criticisms may be constructively expressed. The very faults previously found in a committee become positive virtues when it is used as a board of review for conceptions.
The Serious Nature of Conceptive Mistakes.—The importance of a correct solution of conceptive problems, especially major conceptive problems, cannot be over-estimated. This importance is due partly to the dangerous permanence of conceptive mistakes and partly to the fact that their existence may not be realized.
Permanence of conceptive mistakes derives from the great cost and long peace-time lives of ships, and the money and time required to rectify serious mistakes discovered in them.
Failure to realize the existence of such mistakes is due to the fact that they may be relative rather than absolute. For instance, mediocrity of conception, when opposed to brilliance, becomes a relative mistake which may be revealed only in battle. The astonishing destruction of British battle cruisers at Jutland is an excellent example. Such mistakes are perhaps more deadly for being less evident.
Relative mistakes result from avoidable compromises and from failure to visualize battle conditions. Imagination and specialized knowledge are required to combat the former and avoid the latter. These are the attributes which are inherent in the conceptive agency which has been outlined. Its board of review is the safeguard against absolute mistakes.
The Nature of the Conceptive Agency.—Thus, we may summarize the logical conceptive agency as a leader with imaginative specialized assistants and a board of review.
But once again we encounter opposition—that between the leader and the board. Decision cannot be safely left to either, because normally the leader would tend too much toward revolution and the board too much toward conservatism. Should they be unable to agree, decision obviously should be referred to their common superior, the Secretary of the Navy. But, as he is a civilian, not competent alone to decide, he would naturally secure advice from other competent sources, namely the fleet, the Chief of Naval Operations, and the Naval War College.
Deriving Composition of the Fleet.—With this ultimate safeguard established, we may now consider the process of deriving composition of the fleet. The first step, naturally, should be research. The representatives of all specialties should become investigators in their respective lines, gathering, codifying, and digesting information. They would study history, war plans, Naval and Army War College analyses, intelligence reports of foreign fleets, departmental manuals, fleet manuals and reports, scientific information, and the like.
The next step should be the formulation, by all the minor groups, of conceptive suggestions in their respective lines. The members of the superior group could then use these suggestions in preparing tentative general solutions of composition of the fleet from the tactical standpoint and the strategic standpoint.
The leader would now be in a position to consider all three—the digested data, the suggestions of the minor groups, and the conceptions of the superior group. His decision would thus be well based.
The superior group under the leader’s direction should then develop his plan, assigning detailed work to the appropriate minor groups or requiring additional research or experimental work from them when necessary.
When fully developed, the whole conception, with its explanation and basic data, should be reviewed by the board, then revised by the conceptive agency and again reviewed. This should continue until agreement be reached or decision by the Secretary become necessary. In any case the Secretary would have to give final approval.
When approved, the conception would be ready for further development into the military, operational, and technical characteristics of new ships and major alterations to old ones.
A Continuous Process.—But, it should be obvious that composition of the fleet must change to keep abreast of progress and to keep our Navy ahead of others in quality. Theoretically this implies a state of continuous rather than intermittent change, because progress is continuous when viewed in all its aspects, but in practice we cannot lay down new ships except at appreciable intervals, or extensively alter old ones except occasionally.
If the intervals are long the relative change becomes correspondingly greater. This has several bad effects. New types vary too greatly from their predecessors for fleet homogeneity, and there would be a period of relative weakness just prior to materialization of a change. Also, radical changes are less sound when taken at a single step than when achieved through several steps.
The lesson here is to make changes at frequent intervals and in small quantities. Progressive change is growth; abrupt change is chaos.
We see, then, that composition of the fleet should be fluid. Its agency should be continuously employed. The steps previously indicated as consecutive would all be going on practically constantly, keeping pace with progress. Revision of conception of the fleet would become automatic and practically continuous, yet gradual. Characteristics of needed ships would always be on tap.
Personnel of the Agency.—We are prepared now to consider the personnel of the agency. The leader is the most important element because he is the active factor, whereas the board of review is the factor of safety. Thus, the leader virtually controls conception. He is given wide powers and a strong position. He is fortified by possessing a well organized staff of specialized assistants who, under his direction, can develop strong arguments supporting his conceptions. These the board of review might sometimes find it difficult to combat, even if unsound.
This is a considerable danger. Such a situation is not likely to develop, but it might. The safeguard against it is responsibility. The leader must accept personal responsibility for his conceptions. Responsibility is probably the greatest deterrent against the acceptance and materialization of radical ideas of unproved soundness, which is the danger to be most feared—such, for example, as premature elevation of the aerial bomb to the position of major weapon.
Radicalism Not Necessarily Brilliance.—At this point it is well to consider the relation between radicalism and what is meant in this paper by brilliance of conception.
It might not prove to be a brilliant step to introduce a too radical innovation even when it is perfectly sound in itself. It might do more harm than good. The introduction of the dreadnaught is an example. It invalidated the entire British pre-dreadnaught fleet and offered the Germans an opportunity to gain equality with comparative ease. That the Germans did not accept this opportunity does not alter the fact.
A healthier form of brilliance is the avoidance of unnecessary military compromises. There is a very wonderful example of this in the development of the vertical echelon turret arrangement whereby both broadside and end-on fire was secured for the same guns.
Avoidance of unnecessary compromise depends on recognition and accentuation of cardinal requisites, diminution or elimination of nonessentials, and the incorporation of only well suited characteristics in a type of ship. In other words, it results from imaginative and highly intelligent decision between:
- The tactical requirement of few types to permit type versatility and few ships to promote coordination in battle;
- The strategical requirement of numerous ships to cover large areas and special types for specialized functions, and
- The previously described requirement that only well suited characteristics should be incorporated in a type.
It is not suggested that we always should discourage new departures, but for reasons indicated above, we should not favor those which destroy existing values unless the need is imperative and the gain certain.
The Leader.—Returning now to the leader, it is apparent without further demonstration that he must be a line officer of wide experience and demonstrated capacity.
His Active Assistants.—His assistants in the superior group should be inferior to him only in experience. They should consist of line officers of two classes—those who are especially qualified in tactics and those equally qualified in strategy. Possibly one of each type would suffice.
The weapons group should consist of four groups of line specialists representing respectively, gunnery and the battleship, bombing and the airplane carrier, torpedo control and the destroyer and submarine, and mining and the mine layer.
The auxiliary functions group also should consist of line specialists because their knowledge is desired as to operating requirements, not as to design which would be supplied by the scientific group.
The elemental group should consist of medical, supply, and line officers. The medical representative should participate actively to safeguard health as well as to provide for handling battle casualties. The supply and line officers should have had extensive experience in the duties of the fleet train.
The scientific or technical group should consist of technical specialists of the highest qualifications. The Navy would be best served by them were they commissioned officers; therefore they will be referred to hereafter as technical officers.
One of their important functions is to develop technical solutions for conceptive problems. Being in touch with the trend of conception they should be able to foresee these problems and so to determine, before they become prominent, whether they can be met. This necessitates that these officers shall have access to all experimental facilities possessed by the Navy.
The financial group should consist of officers experienced in cost estimating and accounting. They must be able to prepare estimates for conceptive propositions. They obviously should be officers of the supply corps experienced in this work.
The board of review should consist of line officers of wide general experience. It should have at least six members in addition to its secretary, for a reason which will develop later. The purpose of this board is to ensure soundness of conceptions as regards military and operational features rather than technical ones; therefore, technical personnel is not required.
Rotation of Line Personnel.—The bulk of the personnel is seen to consist of line officers, and line officers must go regularly to sea. Sea service is also necessary for the staff officers in the elemental group to qualify them for this assignment.
Persistence of Policy.—However, these necessary line changes tend to cause a serious ievil which may be described as abrupt changes in conceptive policy. This danger is most pronounced when a change occurs in the leader because another mind thereby takes over the control of major conception. Changes in the line personnel of the groups under him are also dangerous because the leader must depend upon his assistants to work out specialized conceptive details in consistence with his major conceptions. Thus, unless carefully broken in, new assistants might cause minor, yet dangerous, alterations in policy.
Perhaps the most serious result of abrupt change in conceptive policy would be disruption of homogeneity of the fleet. Such a result would normally be possible only through an abrupt and uncoordinated change of the conceptive leader. However, there are other minor, though still very serious, results which might be expected from similar changes among the personnel of the groups of the conceptive agency.
One would be the tendency for a new specialized member to stop developments initiated by his predecessor, the advantages of which his unattuned mind might fail to see. This would waste time and money, and might deprive the Navy of ultimately valuable developments.
The other would be the tendency for the new incumbent to start premature developments of his own, induced by his sudden contact with new and large problems and with so much imaginative thought all around him. Being premature, such developments often would be trivial and sometimes not truly relevant, tending also to waste time and money.
A reasonable persistence of policy therefore becomes an important requirement.
Permanence of Personnel.—To secure it we require the greatest possible permanence of personnel, consistent with sea duty, in both the staff of the leader and in the board of review, with reasonable overlaps in effecting changes.
This personnel permanence can be secured by a method similar in principle to that employed in the U.S. Senate. In brief, a third of the sea-going members of the staff of the leader, and a third of the board of review, could be replaced each year by personnel from afloat. Such replacements should be made on a schedule carefully worked out to prevent the simultaneous relief of officers whose duties are closely allied.
The leader should have a considerable overlap with his successor. It would also seem advisable that the leader should have a two or four year assignment, so as to synchronize closely with the incumbency of the Secretary of the Navy under whom he must • wort.
This brings up the analogous point that the leader should select the officers to come each year to his staff.
Personnel Changes in the Technical Group.-—The members of the technical group of the conceptive leader’s staff are very favorably situated. They are in touch with both the military problems and the developments of science. As has already been suggested, they therefore are competent to suggest military applications of new technical developments as well as to find technical solutions for problems of purely military and operational origin.
These technical officers also are situated, as will appear, to assist actively in design and development work. This is because their purely conceptive duties would not absorb much actual time, and because to be eligible to perform these duties they should be leaders in their respective lines. They therefore can be employed with great advantage to the Navy to coordinate technical design practices in their respective lines throughout all classes of naval material.
Periodic changes among these officers, therefore, would be undesirable, as this would tend to alter the policy of technical design. Also, when the proper technical man for a special job has been found, the best results generally will be had if he be kept at it.
On the other hand, technical stagnation must be guarded against. A logical solution is to allow the leader to replace members of his technical staff, because they must work with him and he should be sufficiently aware of their service reputations to make a suitable choice. But, it is suggested that he should not change more than one fourth of them in a year.
Characteristics of Ships.—The second phase of conception is the development of ship characteristics from the military specifications of composition of the fleet. That is, it marks the transition from the abstract to the concrete. In brief, it involves preliminary ship design and includes operational as well as purely military considerations.
Development of Ship Design.—The process is about as follows: The conceptive requirements are evolved into tentative characteristics with the aid of general data from previous designs. Ship designers then attempt to realize these requirements in a preliminary design. This discloses possibilities and limitations. Necessary readjustments are made and a modified design is developed. The process of readjustment of requirements, with consequent modification of design, continues until a satisfactory solution is reached.
This solution is the general design of the ship. It is the graphic expression of ship characteristics. The judge of its suitability obviously should be the agency which developed the conceptive requirements, namely, the agency which determined the composition of the fleet.
The conceptive agency, therefore, should be not only the judge of final suitability but also of the necessary readjustments to meet limitations disclosed in developing the design. Remembering that the conceptive agency includes both technical and operative personnel of marked attainments, it will be evident that it is qualified to judge these readjustments.
The process of development, as outlined above, is a series of steps apparently taken consecutively, but there are excellent reasons why they should, instead, form a continuous process. These are as follows:
Continuous Supervision of Ship Design by Conception.—If the conceptive agency, after stating its initial requirements, should continuously observe the development of the preliminary design instead of waiting until it is completed to examine it, there would result a meeting of conceptive problems as they develop. The combined brains of the conceptive and design agencies would be simultaneously applied to their solution. Solutions of problems would, from the beginning, conform to the ideas of the conceptive agency, which is the ultimate judge. Characteristics not satisfactory to the conceptive agency would not creep unobserved into the design.
The last mentioned tendency is due to the difficulty of conveying to the mind of the designer exactly what the conceiver desires. It is rendered dangerous where no continuous conceptive observation of design exists, because it is almost impossible for a person reviewing completed design work to realize the full significance of some of its details.
Where the conceptive agency continuously observes design, the preliminary design becomes a fully developed one so far as the requirements of the conceptive agents are concerned. This would cause a great saving of time over the trial-and-error method of development where conception and design function consecutively instead of together.
Checking Up on Changes.—However, with this plan there is the danger that in watching the growth of detailed design the conceptive agents may fail to realize all aspects of the developments which have been made, or of the readjustments from the original conceptive specifications which have been found necessary. They might “fail to see the woods for the trees.”
This danger would be met by requiring radical readjustments to be considered by the conceptive agency as a whole, and by presenting completed designs for examination to the board of review.
Consideration of readjustments by the whole conceptive agency would prevent individual conceptive agents from tending to assume unwarranted initiative or responsibility. This would safeguard the relations between the conceptive agency and the design agency.
Examination of initial designs by the board of review probably would disclose matters requiring attention; therefore initial designs usually would be preliminary designs after all.
Participation by Conception in Design Work.—It is believed that the principle has now been developed that agents of conception should continuously participate in ship design, to the extent of watching and assisting the incorporation of military and operation features.
Conceptive Control of Ship Design.—Participation by conceptive agents in design developments raises the old question of cooperation versus coordination. Should conception control design or merely cooperate with it?
The writer believes that to this point in the analysis most of its technical readers will have agreed with the conclusions which have been indicated, but the suggestion of conceptive control—virtually, line control—of technical designers may prove less acceptable. Yet this control is really necessary for securing excellent naval material. However, the nature of the advocated control should not be misunderstood by either technical or line readers. Therefore the necessity for the control will be demonstrated and its nature carefully elaborated, trusting that the reader, in view of this explanation, will make necessary allowances for the psychological limitations of the writer’s style.
Conception must be satisfied with the product of design. Conception accepts responsibility before the service for the military and operational features of a design, and since these are the determinants of naval excellence, conception must virtually accept full responsibility for design. Therefore conception should be able to guide and direct the activities of ship designers insofar as military and operational matters are concerned. But this is tantamount to control of design. Certainly it is not cooperation with design.
There should be no question of the ability of properly selected and trained line officers to work with technical officers to advantage in developing designs. This is partly because line officers are the only officers whose experience gives them first hand knowledge of the battle and sea-going requirements of naval material. It is partly because all line officers actually are technical officers in a limited sense—that is, they are operative engineers, and unless they are as good operative engineers as the technical officers are designing engineers, the Navy will not be worthy of its purpose.
Line officers are not like automobile owners, who are always being treated to surprises by the ingenuity of automotive designers. They are, or at least those in conceptive positions should be, analogous to the imaginative members of the automotive design staff who concern themselves with studying the requirements of the public and who direct technical designers in realizing these requirements.
Many excellent examples of line control and supervision of design can be found in the history of fire control developments for the Navy by the several commercial firms which specialize in this sort of work. The designing engineers of these companies often, through long experience, will have perhaps better ideas, in. the abstract, than will the individual line officers who supervise their work. But, because the latter represent the controlling theory of gunnery development, of the trend of which these civilian technical men are necessarily somewhat uninformed, they not only defer to supervision by the line representatives but, in most cases, would refuse to proceed without their supervision.
Technical Impracticability.—Modifications in original conceptions are often forced by technical impracticabilities which only develop during design work. Where this impracticability is obvious, modifications cannot be avoided, but where there is doubt (of which the technical group of the conceptive agency should be a competent judge) there will be seen an additional reason to favor conceptive control of design. This is the fact that where impracticability is not readily admitted, the result often will be a brilliant ultimate solution of the problem.
Conceptive Control of Technical Design.—The principle, therefore, appears to be established that conception should control technical design wherever conceptive requirements are involved with it.
Characteristics of Elements of Ships.—The third phase of conception is the development of the characteristics of elements which comprise ships—for example, the ordnance installation, or the propulsive plant.
These are the component parts of ships. They represent the great weights and volumes which must be fitted together into the hull; but the design of these elements must be virtually completed before a ship design can be composed of them, since the weights and positions of their parts are required for stability calculations and their dimensions are required for apportioning the available space.
It will be seen, then, that it is these elements which constitute the variables of ship design. It will be seen that most design impracticabilities will develop through inability to fit these elements together in their hoped-for proportions.
Conceptive Control of Design of Elements.—From this it follows that the participation of conceptive agents in ship design necessarily involves their similar participation in the general design of elements. All of the elements of ships have representatives in the proposed conceptive agency, and the desired characteristics of the ship would be compounded from the ideas of these officers as to the form these elements should take.
Thus, conception should continuously supervise the general design of all elements of ships.
Characteristics of Operational Devices.—By operational devices is meant the minor operative units which comprise the elements of ships. As examples, there are gun mounts, torpedo tubes, airplane catapults, and the steering gear.
Conceptive Control of Design of Minor Devices.—Just as design of its elements is involved in the design of the ship, so is design of operational devices involved in the design of elements. Conception, therefore, should extend its influence down to them, and to the same extent.
It is in considering such details that the respective interests of conception and technical design can be made most clear. Two examples, of differing degree, will be given.
First consider a gun mount for a light cruiser. Conception desires that the gun have a certain range, and for this it is found by the technical designer that an angle of elevation is required of, say, twenty degrees; but, conception knows that pointer fire may become necessary for this gun. To secure the desired range with pointer fire in a twenty-degree roll, an additional ten degrees of elevation is needed. Also, if the ship is damaged a list may be expected up to, say, five degrees. Conception, therefore, requires that design endow the mount with an elevation up to thirty-five degrees.
For the other example, consider arrangements for lubricating the gun mount. After considering all the lubricating arrangements known to design, conception selects the “alemite” or some other system which involves the psychological principle of convenience. This is because conception, represented by line officers, knows that bluejackets can be driven to use grease cups but can be led to use the “alemite” or a similar system.
We can now state a general principle affecting excellence of naval material: namely, line officers should participate in the development of all general designs as regards the incorporation of military or operational features.
Line Officers Keep Out of Technical Design.—Conversely, they should not participate as regards purely technical design matters, because modern technical design has become so highly specialized that in order to secure excellence the technical designer must give his entire time to it. The alternative periods of sea duty required of line officers necessarily unfit them to become also technical designers of the grade we require.
General Design versus Detailing.—Reference has heretofore been to general design in order to differentiate it from detailing, which is the final step whereby a design is prepared for production. Thus, detailing is purely technical and marks the point at which all conceptive line participation should stop.
Forms of Design.—We may now conveniently recognize the existence of three forms of design: namely,
Functional design, which involves the inclusion of purely military requisites. For example, turning radius of a hull, seaworthiness, protection, speed, elevation of guns, arcs of train, use of center-line space, and the like.
Operational design, which involves the inclusion of non-military operational requisites. For example, measures for economy of operation or ease of upkeep, convenience or comfort of personnel, ruggedness of equipment, and the like. Both line and technical officers are qualified to participate in operational design, the former as to results, the latter as to their attainment and as to the introduction of additional possibilities due to scientific progress of which the line officer could not be aware.
Technical design, which involves matters of strength, weight, shape, and kind of material (except where these may be affected by legitimate functional or operational requirements) and detailing to permit production.
Simultaneous Development of All General Designs.—It has been shown that it was better for the agents of conception and technical design to work together in developing ship design than for them to perform their respective functions in alternate consecutive steps. For identical reasons it is also better for the development of all the general designs of a single ship to progress more or less together under the supervision of the same conceptive and technical personnel.
This would permit immediate adjustment all along the line to changes found necessary at either end—that is, changes due to technical difficulties in producing the elementary parts or to difficulties encountered in getting the parts properly disposed in the ship as a whole.
Single Design Agency.—Also, this would bring all design into a unified system coordinated and controlled by a relatively small group of minds. The advantages of this should be apparent. They will be fully brought out in the following section of the paper.
IV. Design
Ship Design.—From the viewpoint of ship design naval material is classified as to types of ships. Aircraft would constitute two special types in this classification.
Types of ships fall into three characteristic groups: namely, surface ships, submarines, and aircraft. These will now be examined as to the problems they present.
Surface Ship Design.—The functional natures of the principal elements of surface ships vary widely but the problems which constitute technical ship design are similar. In other words, there are wide variations in the special problems of hull, propulsive plant, ordnance, and the like, but marked similarity in the general calculations for stability, trim and displacement.
It follows that all surface ship design should be performed by a single agency in order to have a centralized collection of technical information and facilities, and to permit general application of the available technical brains. Presumably, there would develop subdivisions for the several distinctive types, but this would not prevent temporary disposition of technical personnel and facilities to the best advantage during intensified activity in certain types.
The foregoing advantages may be classified as reduction of overhead cost, due to the ability to employ personnel and facilities according to the distribution of the work load, and intensification of technical excellence, due to gathering together, and applying generally, the best brains and all of the available information.
Submarine Design.—Submarine design involves two technical problems, one being the design for surface operation and the other for submerged operation. The former is identical with surface ship design.
In view of the fact that submarines must, therefore, be designed also as surface vessels, there would be obvious advantages in adding submarine design as a special section to the single agency for surface ship design.
Aircraft Design.—There is no direct relation between the technical problems of aircraft design and those of ship design except the very minor problem of developing hulls of flying boats. This limited relation is non-essential.
But, there are obvious functional and operational design relations between heavier-than-air craft and their carriers. In order to secure coordination rather than cooperation in these important relations it is desirable to bring the design of heavier-than-air craft into the same agency which designs their carriers, forming another special section of the ship design agency.
Single Agency for All Ship Design.—Again, since lighter-than-air craft use engines and fittings similar to those of heavier-than-air craft, it follows that they, too, should be designed in a special section of the centralized ship design agency. There should, then, be a single centralized agency for all ship and aircraft design.
Design of Elements of Ships.—Elements of ships may logically be classified in two ways. One is a combined functional and operational classification and the other is technical.
The functional and operational classification consists of hull, propulsive plant, ordnance, aeronautical equipment, fire control equipment, ship control equipment, communications equipment, personnel facilities, storage facilities, and “equipage.” These correspond fairly well with the operating departments of ships. Each covers a wide range of devices which are related because they are parts of the same system or of several systems operated by the same branch of personnel. '
The technical classification consists of naval architecture, steam engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, hydraulics, ballistics, optics, aeronautics, chemistry, and perhaps others. These are the branches of engineering science involved in the technical development of naval material.
There are obvious inter-relations between these classifications. As examples, electric motors are used in ordnance and in propulsive and “equipage” devices; gear wheels, valves, and pipe fittings are used in almost all operative classes of equipment; optical devices are used for ship and fire control and for communications. Thus, these classifications inter-lock.
Single Agency for Design of All Elements of Ships.—Applying principles developed earlier, we remember that line representatives from the conceptive agency should supervise functional and operational design, and technical representatives should supervise technical design. This means that simultaneous inter-locking supervision will be required, which can only be effective if all elements are developed in a single agency so that coordination can replace cooperation.
The agency can now be visualized. It would be subdivided “vertically” into the functional and operational classes, and “horizontally” into the technical classes. The line specialists of the conceptive agency would supervise functional and operational design. The actual work of design would be conducted by technical designers who belong to the regular personnel of the design agency. The technical specialists of the conceptive agency would sift laterally through the organization, carrying out the supervision and standardization of technical design previously described.
Benefits from this Arrangement.—We should then receive the following benefits.
1. Coordination of functional and operational requirements of mutually dependent devices would be effected by the line conceptive agents who supervise ship design as a whole. Reference is to such matters as locating ammunition hoists, duplicating power leads for safety on unarmored ships and routing them to the best advantage, providing reserve sources of power, subordinating boat stowages to gunnery requirements, safeguarding airplanes from gun blast, and the like.
2. Similar and uniformly high grade technical characteristics in all devices of the same technical nature would be ensured by the technical conceptive agents. By this is meant that all electrical equipment would be similar in the theory of its technical design, and that mechanical appliances, such as pipe fittings, bolts and nuts, gear wheels and the like, would be standardized very considerably. Optical work would be standardized. So would many other technical details.
The advantages would be felt in operating and maintaining the equipment as well as in designing and producing it. Performance would be high because the best available brains and knowledge would be generally applied in design. Upkeep would be cheaper. Spare parts would be generally applicable. Production would be simplified.
3. Flexibility of design resources would be secured. Personnel and facilities could be allocated according to the work load. Records would be complete and universally accessible. The best brains would be generally available.
4. Design progress would be rapid and could be intelligently controlled to suit the relative urgency of projects.
5. Experimental requirements could be accurately visualized, their relative urgency determined, and the work controlled. As has been indicated previously, the technical conceptive agents should control experimental work.
Centralized Records.—Several references have been made to centralized records.
Design records should include, among other things, the history of all development and experimental work. The history of all failures is an essential requirement. Such records would prevent repetition of work. They sometimes would enable failures to be turned into successes when scientific progress had overcome the original obstacles. They often would permit useful applications of principles incorporated in obsolete and forgotten devices.
These advantages represent savings of time and money as well as intensification of knowledge, but in order to secure them the records must be properly handled.
Handling of Records.—To prevent repetition of developments it is necessary that all records of similar nature be brought together. They must be grouped and indexed under both functional and operational subjects and technical ones. These requirements can be met only through a single centralized records office with especially qualified and trained personnel.
To permit useful application of old principles a system is necessary to bring them to light at the proper time. This system must be superior to the memory of individuals.
In order that failures may become successes if still applicable, the system must connect scientific advances with old obstacles, and notify the personnel concerned.
Duties of Records Office.—The foregoing requirements would be met if the personnel of the records agency include qualified line, staff, and technical officers representing the several functional, operational, and technical specialties, who perform the following duties:
- Research for the conceptive agency. This would keep them aware of problems.
- Records clerks for their several specialties. They would index all intelligence reports, and reports from afloat and from maintenance agencies, as well as reports of experiments and of developments by conceptive and design agencies. This would familiarize them with new information.
- Historians for their specialties. This requires them to relate new developments with previous ones, studying the tendencies indicated thereby. It is a continuous digestive process applied to all data in the records, and would keep them familiar with applications of information on hand.
- Active informative agents. They must see that the conceptive and design agents are kept informed of potentially useful matter disclosed by the records.
There would be required a permanent personnel for clerical work which, through permanence, would serve as a link between the necessarily changing officers described above. Line and staff members should change at three-year intervals with considerable overlaps. Technical members preferably should have longer assignments.
Experimental Work.—Experiments have also been referred to repeatedly. Having demonstrated that all general design work should be centralized and that development records should be centralized, it follows as a matter of common sense that experimental work also should be centralized. This will not be completely attainable from the physical standpoint because gun proving ranges, which have experimental applications, cannot be close to industrial centers, and torpedo testing ranges depend on water conditions which must be used where found. But it is possible from the administrative standpoint, and many of the required experimental facilities can be centralized physically.
Shop Development of Trial Models.-—Experimental work is conception developed directly in material form. It is functional and operational design without mandatory drafting assistance. Viewed in the latter light, it will be clear that the technical designers actually conducting design development will often find it very advantageous to work directly in experimental shops with the aid of high class workmen. In this manner many working models of new devices can be fully developed without drafting assistance other than making occasional sketches. Working drawings can be made from the models, refining details, substituting castings for parts hewn out of stock in producing the model, combining groups of little parts into bigger single parts, and the like. Production can immediately follow the detailing of these drawings, with safety.
Of course this practice is limited to small and moderate sized developments. It is followed extensively in commercial engineering, but the necessary facilities must be immediately available to the design agency to make it practicable. Its advantages are the clarity with which the designer can see his problems and the reduction of cost. The latter would be lost unless the experimental laboratory were located close to the central design agency.
Detailing.—Detailing is the process of preparing a design for production. It is the final phase of design.
It is purely technical in character. Its primary object is to facilitate production, and for this purpose it is necessary that the needs of production shall be understood. The most practical and efficient way to ascertain productive needs is to work directly with the productive agents.
Decentralization of Detail Design.—If general designs are properly prepared they generally can be detailed without further direct reference to the original designer, provided the detailing personnel has been trained in the same school of design. In naval work this would, of course, be the case.
From this it follows that detailing can safely be de-centralized. In brief, detailing agencies should be located physically close to the various productive agencies in order to permit efficient coordination of detailing with production.
A very material additional advantage is that the centralized general design agency can thereby be reduced very greatly in size. This would facilitate its administration and coordination. It would greatly promote the efficiency of simultaneous interlocking supervision of general design by the functional, operational and technical agents of conception.
The Design Agency as a Whole.—From what has been developed it will be apparent that there should exist a centralized design agency for all naval material, with a few de-centralized branches.
The centralized design agency should consist of a branch for general design, a branch for experimental work, and a records office. The first and last named elements should be situated in the same building occupied by the conceptive agency.
The general design branch should consist of a major section for ship design and a minor (even though more extensive) section for the general design of elements of ships and their components. Each of these sections should be subdivided appropriately. Each subsection and section, and the branch as a whole, should be headed by qualified technical officers of wide design experience.
The experimental branch should be headed by a technical officer of wide general experience. The branch should be subdivided so as to serve the conceptive agency and the general design branch to the best advantage. It also should assist in solving productive problems, as will appear. The personnel should be technical.
The records office has been fully described already.
The decentralized branches would consist of the several design detailing offices at the various productive plants, and of a partial interest in gun proving grounds and torpedo testing ranges.
Proving grounds and torpedo ranges are not only experimental in their use, but are largely testing stations for production. It would be economically wasteful to have duplicate facilities because of this mutual need, and therefore we see also a need for coordination of design and production so that both can use the same facilities of this nature.
Since production really would have the major interest in these stations, for testing completed work, the officers commanding them should be selected from the productive standpoint, as will be demonstrated in the next chapter.
Design detailing offices should be headed by technical officers representing the central design branch, from which they should be administered, but they require coordination with production, in a form which can be foreseen.
The design agency as a whole should be coordinated by a technical officer of wide general experience who may conveniently be called the director of design.
V. Production
Production affects excellence of naval material chiefly through quality of workmanship and economy of funds.
Quality of Workmanship.—Quality of workmanship depends only partly on the quality of the workmen and their tools. The other factors are careful inspection and the use of the best methods of fabrication, assembly, erection, and test.
There is only one best method of accomplishing anything. It can be recognized only by a person qualified to judge, and who is in a position to know accurately the details of all the possible methods.
To secure the desired results the best method must be used wherever it applies. That is, it must be in general use. But, to keep a method in general use, it is necessary to coordinate effectively all agencies in which it is applicable.
As has been demonstrated previously, effective coordination requires control, but also it depends to a considerable extent on the ability to make control effective. The latter becomes difficult if productive work is widely extended, and simple if it is condensed.
Therefore, as regards use of the best methods, it is essential that all similar productive work be centrally controlled and that it be condensed in territorial extent sufficiently to permit effective supervision by the agents of control, that is, inspection.
For inspection, the essential requirements are intelligence and thoroughness.
Intelligent inspection depends upon accurate and complete knowledge by the inspector of what is required. Furthermore, it often happens, during inspection work, that if the inspector also knows why it is required and who requires it, he can greatly expedite and facilitate progress. In brief, the inspector (that is, the supervising inspector) should be a trained specialist in the line of work he inspects, and should be effectively controlled in his activities.
Inspection starts with selecting materials, progresses through fabrication of parts, minor assemblies (such as electric motors or torpedo gyros), major assemblies (such as ammunition hoists or whole torpedoes), erections (such as installing propeller shafting in a hull), and ends with testing for final acceptance. Its character progresses gradually from purely technical to both operational and technical. The whole process, therefore, requires both technical and operative (line) specialists.
Thorough inspection depends on adequate supervision, and knowledge of requirements. As has been discussed above, adequate supervision depends on an adequate force of supervisors kept to the required standard by centralized control.
It will be apparent that with condensed production the number of inspectors would be less and supervision and control of them simpler.
Economy of Funds.—Economy in the use of funds for production depends largely on reduction of overhead costs, effective shop management, and the use of economical methods. It depends also, in the last analysis, on reduction of incidental costs. For instance, compare the cost of shipping both fuel and raw material with the cost of shipping completed parts.
Overhead costs include not only administrative costs but those due to duplication of power sources and other facilities.
With respect to administrative costs and to the previously deduced principle of physical concentration of similar processes, it is important to note that naval material in general is classified in three different ways during the process of production. The first classification is according to the trades or processes by which parts are fabricated. The second is according to the technical units of minor assemblies. The third is according to the operational and functional units of major assemblies, erections, and final tests. These classifications require some explanation.
Classification according to trades or fabricating processes can be explained briefly by examples. The shops and workmen now employed to fabricate the mechanical parts of torpedoes can equally well fabricate those for optical instruments, fire-control instruments, and any other equipment which requires high-grade, light machining. Similarly, those now building guns can equally well machine torpedo air flasks or propeller shafting.
Classification according to minor assemblies likewise involves trades: for example, wiring of electrical devices, sheet metal work, assembling of internal combustion engines, and blading turbines. It involves other activities too specifically naval to be classified as trades, such as assembling torpedo gyros and engines, and assembling range finders. However, it is clear that naval material is very differently classified here than it is for fabrication. Most minor assemblies will use parts fabricated by several quite different processes.
Classification according to major assemblies is again quite different. Each major assembly usually includes several dissimilar minor assemblies. For example, a turret mount includes electric motors, guns, gun mounts, fire control devices, rammers, ammunition hoists, electric lights and other units.
It has been explained that physical concentration of similar processes is essential for quality of workmanship. This refers not only to fabricating processes, but equally to the processes of minor and major assembling, as can readily be seen.
Single Agency for Production.—Then, since all naval material during its process of development becomes subdivided successively into three different classifications in each of which there should be concentration of similar processes, it follows that all production necessarily should be undertaken by a single agency for all naval material. Only by this means can these successive subdivisions be coordinated and inspection made effective under them.
Coming back now to administrative costs we see that one item will be that of the whole productive organization—that is, the cost of the central office. It is noteworthy, first, that the cost of a central office should be less than that of several cooperative head offices. The other point is that the cost of a central office would be less, the greater the condensation of the units it coordinates.
The other item of administrative cost is that of the several offices directly controlling the several fabricating, assembling, erecting, and testing units. The fewer the total number of units, the less the total cost. The fewer the separated shops under a unit, the less the cost of that unit for administration.
With respect to duplication of power sources and other facilities, it is hardly necessary to demonstrate that condensation in number of establishments lessens both the initial cost of equipment and the cost of operation.
Effective shop management depends largely on specialized training of technical managers, but it is greatly facilitated by concentration of similar activities because the utilization of resources and personnel becomes more flexible. Also, concentration produces intensification of technical knowledge, permitting all problems to be met most intelligently.
The use of economical methods is involved somewhat with use of best methods, previously discussed. Sometimes expensive methods must be used for the sake of quality of output, but there are many cases where the development of a best method can be advantageously simplified if economy of production is kept in mind. The development of automatic machinery will indicate what is meant.
This indicates that production also has a direct interest in the use of experimental facilities to develop new methods.
The method by which work is handled is another case offering opportunities for marked economy. A good illustration here is the advantage which would result from grouping of fabricating units to permit minor assembling without requiring distant transporting of parts.
Incidental costs would be reduced by fabricating and effecting minor assemblies at inland points close to the sources of fuel and raw materials. It is less costly to transport minor assemblies and parts than to transport the fuel and raw materials necessary to make them.
There is also a strategical value in this plan. Fabricating plants would be centrally located, able to ship minor assemblies in any direction. They would be protected from enemy coastal raids. The war time transportation problem would be simplified.
But it is not the purpose of this paper to discuss such applications of strategy. The question is too much bound up with the Navy’s peace-time requirement that coastal maintenance shops shall be kept in operation so that they will be ready in the event of war. It will be merely suggested that it might be well for the Navy to survey properly located industrial plants in order to identify appropriate ones so that advance arrangements could be made with their owners for their direct war operation by the Navy.
Summary of Productive Requirements.—Thus, from the standpoints of both quality of product and economy of funds, we should have a single agency for producing all naval material. So far as is commensurate with keeping maintenance yards ready for war through keeping them busy, this agency should consolidate its similar activities, and should group related activities to facilitate minor assembling. Its active and supervisory work should be handled by specialists.
Functions Not Yet Discussed.—Certain incidental functions of production remain for brief consideration. They are of interest chiefly as regards personnel. These are planning, outside contracts, procurement, storage, cost accounting and inspection. The last named has been discussed, but only in some of its aspects.
Planning splits up detailed designs into parts and assigns these to the proper fabricating plants. It ascertains the relative urgency of jobs and establishes precedence of work. It coordinates the design requirements of production with the local agency of detail design.
Its duties are both administrative and technical, but chiefly technical. It has no place for line or staff officers.
Outside contracts take care of the productive work done for the Navy by commercial firms. The contract section would secure specifications and plans from design, advertise for bids, investigate the qualifications of bidders, award contracts, arrange for inspection, and, upon acceptance, make payments and arrange for transportation, handling and storage.
These functions are administrative and fiscal. However, close liaison with technical agencies in several of these functions would be facilitated by including a limited technical personnel. The personnel, therefore, should consist of supply and technical officers.
Procurement secures raw materials and stock for production. It differs from contracts for completed mechanisms only slightly. The chief differences are the close touch it must keep with the work loads of naval productive agencies in order to keep them supplied, and the coordination it must have with storage facilities. Procurement could be combined with the contract section to reduce overhead.
Storage has regard to both raw materials and completed units. Both require intelligent care. The care of raw materials requires technical knowledge, but the case of completed units can best be supervised by operative personnel because upkeep of units on board ship is one of their special duties. Storage, therefore, requires both technical and line officers. Storage should be closely coordinated with both contracts and procurement, suggesting their combination into a single office.
It is important to note that these three facilities are required for maintenance work as well as for production. It would be un-economical to have separate offices to handle them under each function, but to combine them effectively to serve both production and maintenance would necessitate effective coordination of production and maintenance.
Cost accounting is required at each active productive agency to enable its responsible head to watch the expenditure of his allotment. It is a specialized fiscal process, to conduct which supply officers are the logical choice.
A centralized cost accounting office for the entire naval establishment is necessary. This would necessarily contain subdivisions to represent all naval activities which expend money, among which production would be only one. However, the subdivision for production presumably would be located in Washington where the central office for controlling production would be located. Cooperation here should be sufficient to keep the director of production informed of the expenditure of his funds. He should not need a special cost accounting agency of his own.
Inspection has already been discussed in its relation to selecting materials and fabricating parts. Its final form is testing. Testing minor assemblies would be technical in nature. Testing major assemblies has operational aspects. Both erecting of devices in ships and their final tests are chiefly operational in character.
First, as regards erecting: It is then that most piping and wiring is installed, that working platforms and access ladders and apertures are fitted, and that safety appliances are installed. By having experienced operative (line) personnel to supervise these matters much future trouble can be forestalled.
Testing determines acceptability. The ultimate customer is the fleet; therefore final acceptance should lie with Operations. But, to meet the requirements of the fleet, preliminary tests must be made. Conception is the agency which has undertaken to produce ships suitable to the needs of the fleet and therefore conception should be the judge of preliminary tests.
Conception Dominates Inspection.—The logical inference is that the inspectors of all tests should be direct agents of conception. But all inspective acts are tests. Therefore the whole process of inspection should be controlled directly by conception.
With this plan it will be seen that conceptive agents will secure, by direct observation, the information about performances which is obviously of such immense conceptive and design value. Being directly controlled by the conceptive agents, the inspectors will be intelligently directed as to what information is wanted.
It will also be seen that the technical agents of conception would, by this plan, be enabled to secure direct information as to the correctness of their design practices. They would get reports all along the line, from selecting materials to lubrication, mechanical freedom, lost motion, and interferences.
Proving Grounds and Torpedo Testing Ranges.—Coming now to the previously mentioned gun proving grounds and torpedo testing ranges, it will be at once apparent that they exist chiefly as means of making tests. However, at no point in the system has it appeared desirable that the function of inspection should be confused with administration. Inspectors should not conduct tests, but simply observe them. Any other plan might lead to misunderstandings with production in the event that equipment was rejected.
It therefore appears that proving grounds and ranges should be commanded and operated by technical personnel and should form elements of the single productive agency. Inspective personnel should be assigned to them merely to watch results.
The Productive Agency as a Whole.—As regards the productive agency as a whole, a matter of interest is the type of officer who should be its director. It is regarded as self-evident that he should be a technical officer of wide general experience.
VI. Maintenance
The effect of maintenance on excellence of naval material resembles that of production as regards economy and quality of work, but to a less extent. However, it has another effect, somewhat analogous to the benefits derived by conception and design from inspection of production (but of greater value), due to the fact that maintenance sees naval material after it has been subjected to the test of service. This makes maintenance an important source of information for conception and design.
Economy of Funds Difficult.—Economy of funds is difficult in maintenance work because strategic considerations necessitate having a number of widely separated and versatile maintenance yards, and preparedness requires that they be kept operating so as to be ready.
The full war capacity of these yards exceeds the normal peace time requirements of both maintenance and that part of production performed directly by the Navy. This necessitates a partial shutting down of facilities. By shutting down all facilities of certain types at one yard and those of a different type at another yard, the yards could be specialized. In war the specialized personnel, being subject to draft, could be split up to make all yards versatile.
Partial specialization appears consistent with fleet needs. All heavy ships could be assigned to one yard on each coast, submarines and aircraft, with their internal combustion engines, to another, and light surface craft to a third.
The yard handling heavy ships could be the one also assigned to do heavy productive work, and consistency should be sought also as regards other combinations of maintenance and productive work.
Quality of Workmanship.—The wide distribution of maintenance yards renders it difficult to exercise effective centralized supervision, necessary to keep all yards to the same high standard. For this purpose the inspection force already discussed under “Production” would be an excellent—in fact, necessary—agency. Another means of maintaining high quality would be by very thorough liaison between maintenance and production. For example, bulletins describing productive experiences and methods could be distributed to maintenance yards, and vice versa.
Maintenance Assisted by Production.—In preparing to make alterations on a class of ships, maintenance often will need new parts in sufficient quantity to justify having them made by production. This would be economical and would also ensure quality of workmanship. However, economy would be defeated if the productive work load were thereby disturbed, and therefore, to render this productive assistance beneficial, it would be necessary to have, not cooperation, but coordination of production and maintenance.
Effective coordination also would be necessary between conception and maintenance so that the need for parts could be foreseen soon enough in advance, since productive work must take its turn and therefore is relatively slow.
There are, of course, other cases where single items of work are too big for maintenance facilities. Here operational urgency is the determinant of precedence and economy must sometimes be disregarded.
Information for Conception and Design.—The agents of maintenance are like physicians and surgeons. They are told the symptoms of troubles, examine the affected parts, make diagnoses, and then operate. This procedure enables them to get down to underlying causes.
These causes are the information desired by conception and material, supported by the reasoning and evidence. They obviously will be chiefly technical in nature, but some minor operational design information will also be secured. However, most operational and functional design information should be secured through reports from afloat.
Alterations.—Information of faulty performances, such as the above, leads the conceptive and design agencies to develop alterations. Since ships are often built in groups it follows that alterations often affect several ships, and should be made in them all. This would involve coordination of conception, design, maintenance, and operation, thus presenting a problem which will be considered in Chapter VII—Coordination of the Functions.
Even where requests for alterations originate afloat the above coordination is necessary.
Other Design Assistance.—Maintenance also requires design assistance occasionally in effecting major repairs. This necessitates coordination of design and maintenance because often the demands of such work are imperative as to time and so would tend to interfere with new design progress.
Cooperation With Operation.—Obviously, the liaison between maintenance and operation should be perfect. Operation should determine what is to be done and the priority of work; maintenance does the work. But there are two possible causes of discord. One is the availability of ships and the other the availability of funds.
Availability of ships is viewed by operation as to its effect on the fleet schedule, but by maintenance as to its effect on the work load. The latter determines whether maintenance can hold its trained workmen.
Availability of funds determines where maintenance must draw the line through the work list of operation.
These points can best be settled by coordination.
Maintenance Facilities Afloat.—Repair ships of the fleet differ from maintenance yards only in capacity and in the employment of enlisted mechanics. Thus, there are no logical objections to putting their repair departments under the control of technical officers and operating them on the same basis as maintenance agencies ashore. On the other hand, there are numerous advantages which would result, as will now be indicated.
The enlisted mechanics would be trained under technical specialists, which would make them more valuable when reassigned to combatant ships.
The character of work would be as good as that done at maintenance yards. These ships would receive the bulletins issued by production for the information of maintenance agencies. The controlling personnel would be similarly trained and experienced.
The information of value to conception and design would be included with that forwarded by the other maintenance agencies for the use of the conceptive and design agencies.
Operating conditions would be observed at first hand by technical officers.
Liaison between maintenance and operation would be aided.
Advance reports on work to be done at shore maintenance yards could be made by the technical personnel of repair ships.
The last advantage is by far the most important. Detailed and efficient reports obviously could be made by these trained repair officers who themselves should have come originally from the very agencies to which their reports go. Such advance information as to required material and estimated cost should be adequate for preparatory work, so that maintenance yards could start actual work very quickly after the ship arrived.
Repair ships with technical officers in their repair departments should be commanded and operated by line personnel in the manner now followed for hospital ships.
Cooperation With Ships Under Repair.—Line officers should be detailed to maintenance yards and to the repair departments of repair ships in order that the removal of equipment from ships under repair, and work actually performed on board the ships, may be coordinated with the operating necessities of the ships. For instance, line officers could most intelligently arrange for heating, lighting, or water where the regular ship’s services have been necessarily interrupted. They also can grasp most readily the nature of the troubles which the ship’s officers want corrected. In brief, they are essential for liaison.
Maintenance a Single Agency.—Since conception, design, and production, each should be conducted by single centralized agencies, so also should maintenance, which has inter-relations with all of them. Any other maintenance organization could not be administered efficiently under the circumstances. The director of maintenance obviously should be a technical officer.
VII. Coordination of the Functions
Another Application of Coordination versus Cooperation.—Coordination versus cooperation has been discussed as regards conception, but since then coordination has been used several times with regard to the mutual action of virtually independent agencies. This new application requires consideration.
Coordination of agencies, as in other cases of coordination, involves control—that is, the agencies must be controlled by a superior authority.
The implication here, assuming that the coordinator is qualified for his job, is that he will know or else find out the respective needs of the agencies, will consider them in the light of his general plan, will eliminate non-essential considerations, and will promulgate instructions covering his decisions. Furthermore, he will watch results, seeing that his desires are correctly realized and applied.
Cooperation between agencies, on the other hand, lacks a general plan, and decisions will depend on mutual agreement. Other than the good intentions of the necessarily biased heads of the cooperating agencies, no means is included for eliminating non-essential considerations and arranging the others in order of importance. The decisions, therefore, are very apt to be based on the points of view of the respective agencies instead of on the higher point of view of ultimate advantage to the Navy.
Cooperation is not susceptible of effective supervision because there is no superior to watch both sides. Supervision by either side naturally is biased. Even where cooperation is natural and easy, its extent will depend on the energy and personality of the mutually concerned agents. Where it is difficult the natural tendency would be toward friction and ill feeling.
Thus we see that coordination tends toward logical and efficient interaction; cooperation tends the other way and can be made efficient only through the fortunate accident of a similar viewpoint by the cooperators.
The Mutual Dependence of the Functions.—As the analysis has progressed we have seen the dependence of design on conception, of production on design, and of maintenance on both design and production. We have seen also the dependence of conception and design on maintenance. Chart I shows these interrelations graphically.
Single Agency for Developing All Material.—All of these dependencies clearly require coordination rather than cooperation. From this it follows that we should have a single agency for the development of all naval material. For convenience, we shall refer to it as the division of naval material.
The chief of naval material then would be the natural leader of the conceptive agency because as such he would directly dominate all these functions except maintenance. Through the inspection of maintenance work by the inspection force which forms an adjunct of the conceptive agency, he would, in fact, also dominate maintenance.
Coordination of Maintenance With Operation.—It was pointed out in discussing maintenance that the only two questions requiring adjustment between operation and maintenance were the navy yard work load versus the fleet operating schedule, and the point at which lack of funds would interfere with completing maintenance work on ships. The Secretary of the Navy, obviously, is the superior authority who must settle the first of these questions. Funds are the determinant of the other question.
The Use of Funds.—The use of funds can be one of the chief determinants of excellence of naval material. By economy of production and maintenance, money should become available for development work and for more maintenance work. But these are too narrow restrictions. A more general use of surplus funds would also permit more extensive operating by the fleet, thereby securing more information for the use of the conceptive agency. This general use of surplus funds is possible only where Congress appropriates a lump sum to the Navy. The Secretary of the Navy should be responsible for its use. The necessary restrictions will be discussed later, in Chapter X.
Centralized Accounting.—In order to use surplus funds to advantage the Secretary would require a centralized accounting office to keep him advised of expenditures. He would require, also, a planning agency to ascertain the proposed activities of all branches of the naval establishment, estimate their cost, scale them down to the limitations of the budget, and prepare a composite time- expenditure curve. Comparing actual expenditures with this curve he would know the state of his balance and so could use his surplus for the purposes deemed most necessary.
Budget Agency.—The above described planning agency, when operating as indicated, would really be a budget bureau. It should include line, staff, and technical officers so that the problems of all agencies which spend money could be intelligently and sympathetically grasped. It would require a director who, by virtue of his influence in the vital matter of funds, would exert a very powerful influence over naval affairs.
Of course the Secretary would not act on his advice alone, but, presumably, would secure advice from the General Board before approving proposals. The budget director would be in direct and constant association with the Secretary.
Because the primary purpose of the Navy always must be preparation for or the conduct of war, it is essential that the director of the budget should be a line officer.
VIII. Personnel Training and Specialization
An important determinant of quality of naval material is the quality of the officer personnel. This obvious truth has already been inferentially indicated by the constant references to line and technical specialists during the discussion of conception and design. There are other less apparent applications as regards the upkeep and use of equipment at sea. These require discussion in order to establish the relation between excellence of material and the training and specialization of personnel.
Use of Equipment.—The upkeep of equipment by its operating personnel is the elementary form of maintenance. Barring unavoidable accidents and design oversights, the extent of work to be done by repair ships and navy yards will vary inversely with the excellence of operational upkeep.
Excellence of operational upkeep requires knowledge as well as attention. This knowledge should come from training supplemented by experience, and not from experience alone, because upkeep knowledge derived solely from experience is normally the result of making mistakes. It is acquired by trial and error. The unfortunate effect on the equipment is obvious.
In using equipment its performance will depend on the knowledge of the operating personnel as well as on their energy and intelligence. And again, this knowledge should come from training supplemented by experience instead of from experience alone, but for somewhat different reasons, which follow.
The lessons of experience are taught by happenings and self-instruction. Happenings related to the subject may occur infrequently perhaps only at wide intervals during peace. For example, periods of torpedo firing occur only two or three times a year during quite short periods. Thus, experience requires a long time to complete its course of instruction.
The significance of a happening is not always apparent, and knowledge is required to understand it. For example, a curved torpedo run may actually be due to unequal rudder throws, but a torpedo officer lacking training would incline to suspect the more obvious gyro, perhaps overhauling it to no purpose.
But, if knowledge is necessary to interpret happenings, it follows that a person in the process of learning by experience will often be led to false conclusions. In other words, experience will lead different persons in different paths before bringing them together, finally, at knowledge, and at intermediate points of the journey they may be headed in opposite directions.
Self-instruction, on the other hand, is inclined to hew closer to the line, but generally is impeded by waste motion due to improper sequence, and ignorance of proper sources of information.
Thus, we see that experience is a slow and illogical teacher, very apt to lead its untrained pupils astray, but, the teachings of experience serve merely to enrich the knowledge of those who have been trained.
The Nature of Training.—By inference from what has preceded it will be seen that training is imparting the digested experience of many people.
Digesting the experience of many people consists in collecting their experiences, comparing them, investigating discrepancies, and drawing up logical conclusions.
Imparting the resultant information requires, first, that it be arranged in a natural sequence so that the mind of the student will be prepared to grasp a new idea through having already assimilated others upon which it depends.
The next requirement is that it shall be stated generally, and in such form that the student will be able to apply it to specific instances. Briefly, this requires that the information be stated as a series of general principles, utilizing specific instances only to illustrate their application.
The Need for Training.—The need for operative training should therefore be apparent. Trained officers would make few mistakes at the expense of equipment. They would get high performance from it. They also would be able to draw intelligent conclusions from occurrences, which would render their reports and recommendations correspondingly valuable to the agencies of conception and design.
But, these benefits derive only if officers receive training before they become involved with the upkeep and use of naval material. Thus, training is for the good of the Navy rather than that of the individual, and should be mandatory.
Operational Specialization.—Training of line officers in the use and care of equipment is virtually synonymous with operational specialization. This is because training must be specific. An officer about to perform gunnery duties would find propulsive engineering training of slight help. As an addition to his gunnery training it would be a burden. In the course of his career in the lower and middle grades he can receive training and gain experience in several operational lines, but only consecutively.
The test of soundness of operational specialization is its relation to tactics because all line officers as they gain command rank must be qualified in tactics. The functional line specializations are gunnery (including fire control), torpedo control, bombing, mine laying, communications, ship control, and ship propulsion. It is a notable fact that each one of these except ship propulsion has direct tactical implications for its controlling personnel.
Consecutive specialization in three of these lines should be sufficient basic preparation for tactics and command, provided that ship control and communications are two of them. The third should be consistent with the principal weapon of the class of ship in which the officer is to serve.
Propulsive engineering is in a class apart, and so utterly unrelated to the other battle functions that the way in which it is handled by the British does not seem without merit. But, like the others, it is a function in which special training would produce commensurate benefits.
Specialization in Types of Ships.—The reference to service in a class of ships brings up another form of line specialization. The essential classes are battleships (including cruisers), airplane carriers, destroyers and submarines, and mine craft. The grouping is according to the principal weapon. Continuous service in a class is desirable rather than the contrary. Each class leads its personnel into fleet tactics, and in the minor classes the induction is earlier and lasts longer.
It is no more necessary that an officer shall command a battleship to be qualified to command a fleet than that he should also command a mine layer. This is because no officer is really qualified to command in war until he has had general tactical training. Correct tactical training is based on fleet tactics, so that the student learns the mutual relations of all types in battle, regardless of the type of ship in which he specializes. Tactical training, therefore, should precede assignment to command.
Technical Specialization.—The remaining form of specialization is technical. Its necessity can be judged from civil practice. Modern scientific development has become so diversified, and at the same time so intensified, that no individual can become a really high grade technical engineer except through training and continuous application in a special line.
Postgraduate technical study is a recognized essential for technical specialization. Continuous application is no less essential for being less clearly perceived in the Navy. Scientific progress is so continuous and so frequently revolutionary that an officer could not remain a real technical specialist at least, not of the grade required by the Navy—without continuous practice.
The need for this is also apparent when it is realized that to qualify as a real technical expert it is necessary to have not only postgraduate training but also extensive experience in inspection, production, maintenance, and design.
Separation of Line Officers from Technical Work.—Early in the paper it was demonstrated that line officers should participate directly in functional and operational design. This participation was shown to be entirely consistent with their line duties, and is consistent with the line specializations described just above.
On the other hand, it was also demonstrated that line officers should not participate in technical design. This conclusion is confirmed by the discussion which has just taken place regarding technical specialization.
Engineer or Technical Corps.—The inevitable and only sound conclusion is that the Navy should have a distinct corps of technical specialists. This corps might be called the engineer corps or the technical corps. The latter probably is preferable. It should contain specialized groups for naval architecture, marine engineering, electrical engineering and the other branches which have been indicated heretofore.
IX. Our Present Material System
It is proposed now to examine our present system for developing naval material in the light of what has preceded. The informed reader will have noted many differences between what has been developed in the analysis and what now exists, but it is proposed to discuss only those differences which are believed to be of the greatest importance. This will serve to bring them into sharper focus. The following comments will refer to the existing system unless otherwise specifically indicated.
Conception.—It is believed that our present methods of conception are wrong in the following respects:
1. Composition of the fleet and the military and major operational characteristics of ships are now determined by a committee. This is a serious fault. The committee is the General Board, which would be an admirable board of review for major conceptions. It has other important duties, not concerned with conception, to which this comment in no way refers.
2. Specialists do not now participate directly in major conceptive developments. Both line and technical specialists appear as witnesses before the General Board which is composed normally of generalists.
Our technical specialists usually are trained and tend to think alike, and technical work also is more scientific and therefore less controversial than line work; but, our line specialists, being at present untrained operationally, tend to think differently. This forces the General Board to judge between divergent views upon many subjects in which the board members often do not have detailed knowledge. The General Board is further handicapped because the witnesses cannot easily be given a clear idea of the board’s point of view, due to insufficient opportunity. Finally, each witness normally has a specialized view of his own which he cannot avoid stressing.
3. Minor conception also is frequently handled by boards. The Fire Control Board and Ship Control Board are examples. They convene intermittently, which is also bad. They are very hurried. Temporary boards also frequently are convened to consider special conceptive subjects when circumstances render them prominent.
4. Conceptions are not coordinated directly with composition of the fleet. They cannot be, with five independent cooperative material agencies: namely, the material bureaus.
5. There is no individual responsibility for major, and many minor, conceptions.
6. There is no continuous conceptive supervision of ship design. This is obvious, since the General Board, which is the present major conceptive agency, has neither time, nor personnel with the requisite specialized knowledge, to conduct supervision of this nature.
7. Minor conceptive policy is unstable in several bureaus where material is handled by classes instead of by functions. Such subdivision forces decentralization of conception, with the result that periodic changes in personnel within a bureau tend to cause changes in conceptive policy of the affected classes of the bureau’s material.
8. Minor conception is impaired, in bureaus so organized, because distribution of their insufficient personnel to handle a number of classes makes it necessary for individuals to combine their conceptive function with administrative and other duties. In this connection the reader is referred to The Cult of Incompetence by Emil Faguet in which the decentralization of functions is admirably discussed.
9. Minor conceptions are not coordinated between bureaus. Refer to No. 4. This is a serious impediment to sound general development.
Design.—The following faults are believed to exist in our design procedure. To facilitate reference, the sequence of numbers will be continued.
10. Ship design is virtually controlled by technical officers—naval constructors. This is because of Nos. 6 and 11.
11. Naval constructors perform functional and operational, as well as technical, design functions for ships as a whole and also for their hulls and “equipage.” It is believed that the dangerous and unnecessary “line-construction corps feud,” which obviously does exist to some extent in the service, is caused by this fact, coupled with lack of continuous conceptive supervision of design (See No. 6) and the lack of any generally accepted line opinion on any line subject of importance. The latter can be traced to lack of line specialization and training. In brief, the causes of the feud probably are a bad system and perhaps bad line officers rather than bad naval architects.
12. Line officers now perform technical design. This they cannot do properly. Also, it is harmful to the line to let them try, because technical training is necessary, and takes considerable time, during which the line officers being trained are removed from their legitimate work. They are removed from it, also, whenever they do technical designing. Since those now so employed are especially selected for their ability, it follows that the line, in them, loses the use of some of its best minds during extensive periods. Line problems are of themselves sufficiently difficult, and also pressing, to require for their solution all the brains and energy that the service can muster.
13. Design of elements of ships is not coordinated. The five bureaus cooperate instead. See Nos. 4 and 9.
14. Overlapping cognizances result from the bureau system, whereby material is handed by classes instead of by functions. For example, fire control instruments are handled by Ordnance, gyro compasses (essential for fire control) by Navigation, voice tubes (also essential) by Engineering and Construction and Repair, and all electric wiring and power sources by Engineering.
All of these things require centralized coordination, whereas all that is not possible is cooperation.
15. Technical and operational considerations tend to dominate military ones, due to Nos. 6, 10 and 11. The reverse must be the case, to secure functional brilliance and soundness of design.
A few guarded examples can be given: Destroyer body designs have been architected for speed with economy of power, with the result that these vessels have battleship turning circles (poor antisubmarine screening vessels.) They and our light cruisers have four funnels for reasons of propulsive economy, or perhaps to facilitate smoke control. This wastes precious center-line space for guns and, in the case of cruisers, for an airplane catapult in a sheltered and versatile position.
Smoke control can be handled readily in a multiple-flue funnel by raising forward flues relatively to those abaft them, in a reverse vertical echelon.
Finally, our torpedoes for years have been designed with turbine engines for reasons of operational ruggedness, but at the expense of the very great tactical advantage of a wide speed range. Only very recently has it been found possible to develop the latter feature in a turbine torpedo.
In general, results such as the above are due to:
- Lack of a centralized development of all conception.
- Failure to develop minor conceptions directly from a single theory of composition of the fleet. This is a corollary of (a).
- Direct development of some phases of military conception and design by technical officers. See Nos. 10 and 11.
- Direct development by line officers of some phases of technical conception and design. See No. 12. The bad effect here results really from causes (a) and (b). The fact that a line officer cannot also be a good technical designer (See No. 12) is incidental.
16. Technical design is not standardized. For example, electrical standards and practices are considerably different among the bureaus. So are mechanical tones. The worst result is the confusion afloat, but the failure to profit generally from developments by each bureau is another bad result.
17. There is no central design records office. Its benefits are absent.
18. Design policy is unstable in some bureaus. Same as for No. 7.
19. Design overhead costs are greater than necessary, due to lack of concentration of personnel and facilities.
20. Design progress is slow due partly to No. 6 and partly to a considerable tendency among the bureaus to produce complete general designs before operating models are built and tested. This probably is due to absence of convenient experimental facilities.
21. Design work is often too expensive, for reasons given in No. 20.
Production.—The discussion of faults continues.
22. Fabrication is not sufficiently condensed according to processes or trades. This is due chiefly to having five independent bureaus. The advantages previously indicated are lost, especially economy.
23. Minor assemblies are not condensed. Reasons and results similar to those of No. 22.
24. Technical productive work is done by line officers. This wastes their time. See No. 12.
25. One bureau’s plans depend on another’s funds, in cases of the sort indicated in No. 14. The objections are too apparent to require statement.
Maintenance.—
26. Navy Yard work on ships is not effectively coordinated. This is partly because under the existing system it is not possible for maintenance representatives to inspect proposed work ahead of time.
27. Some technical maintenance work is done by line officers. See No. 24.
28. Funds for maintenance are not centrally coordinated. This is because specific appropriations are now made by Congress direct to the several bureaus. Transfers of surplus funds are not permitted. The Secretary cannot apply the naval appropriations to the best advantage.
Miscellaneous Considerations.—There are several faults which do not come directly under any of the foregoing heads, as follow:
29. Line officers are not trained in their operative duties before assignment, except for aviation and submarines. Aviation and submarines are specialties in types of ships rather than functional specialties, although they include instruction in associated functions.
The only other functional instruction now given to line officers is in torpedoes, optical equipment, gas protection, and at the Naval War College. None of these courses necessarily precedes related assignments to duty. All of them except the War College deal more with upkeep than with functional use of equipment, except, of course, the instruction in gas protection.
Line specialties are not recognized. In fact, they are officially discouraged, although they actually exist, both as to functions and classes of ships. They obviously have to exist, but official disapproval of them naturally makes officers unwilling to specialize effectively, thus preventing the Navy from securing the full benefits from this specialization.
General Summary.—The foregoing faults may be summarized as improper conception, cooperation where coordination is necessary, improper use of line and technical officers, uneconomical use of funds, and failure to train line officers for line functions.
These serious faults are bound to lead to commensurate faults in our naval material. Informed readers will be aware of sufficiently numerous and serious material faults to substantiate the criticisms which appear in this paper. It is, of course, inexpedient to enumerate such cases here.
X. A Proposed System
Modifications to Existing System.—Except for improper major conception, the faults in our present system are direct or indirect products of the splitting up of naval material among five independent bureaus. Those which are direct products will be obvious from what has preceded. The indirect ones chiefly result from the use of line officers for technical work and technical officers for line work.
It does not appear possible to secure a satisfactory system by temporizing with the classified subdivision of material which the present bureaus represent. Placing them under a chief of naval material would not solve the problem because his power could then be only nominal; that is, he could not render it effective. The changes he would have to make in order to centralize design, condense productive facilities, apply maintenance funds to the best advantage, and enable his centralized conceptive agency to exercise general supervision and coordination would actually result in the creation of a functional system similar to that outlined in this paper.
It is therefore proposed that we should attack the situation boldly, establishing a single division of naval material organized on functional lines essentially as has been indicated. This single agency should perform the material functions of the present Bureaus of Construction and Repair, Ordnance, Engineering, Navigation, and Aeronautics.
Growth of the Present System.—The proposed change does not appear so startling if we realize that the present system is a haphazard growth, not a logical development. It started in sailing ship days when hull and ordnance were the two major classes of equipment. There were no conflicts between them—no interlocking requirements. The guns were rolled about on wheels and the hull merely provided apertures for their muzzles and ring bolts for their breechings.
Another bureau resulted when steam propulsion developed, but since hulls were still wood and guns did not require power, there were still no interlocks; but when metals and power became generally necessary in all departments of ships the bureau system automatically became illogical.
Other Material Bureaus.—No direct reference has yet been made to the present Bureaus of Yards and Docks, Supplies and Accounts, and Medicine and Surgery. These all handle material to some extent, but in general it does not come under the definition of naval material.
However, the Bureau of Yards and Docks handles facilities which are utilized very largely by the productive and maintenance agencies. There are relatively few naval stations which are used for administrative or operational work not connected with the development of naval material, and these are ordinarily commanded by line officers or supply officers. It therefore would appear quite proper to include this bureau in the division of naval material, as well as very desirable. It could be administered to advantage as an element of the agency of maintenance.
The Bureau of Supplies and Accounts at present performs three functions. Of these, accounting should be centralized for the entire Navy, as has been indicated; therefore it should be done by an agency coming directly under the office of the Secretary of the Navy.
The second function consists of handling contracts for productive work, and sometimes for maintenance work, by civilian firms. This has been discussed, and clearly should be performed within the division of naval material in a single agency serving both production and maintenance.
The third function consists of procurement and storage of raw materials and stock. These include food, clothing, and operational supplies for ships. In this function, as in the second, the bureau is merely an agent, but it serves two masters (the division of naval material and the division of operations of the fleet) whose requirements are quite dissimilar. Nothing essential is gained by combining these dissimilar duties in a single independent agency and much would be lost if thereby the division of naval material were to lose control of those functions which rightly belong to it. Thus, it appears logical to subdivide procurement and storage between the two divisions of naval material and naval operations. In the division of naval material a single agency should perform this work (together with contracts) for the agencies of both production and maintenance.
The Naval Organization as a Whole—The condensations so far suggested would result in two main subdivisions of the Navy Department with certain agencies coming directly under the Secretary’s office and two others not yet assigned.
The two latter are the personnel functions of the Bureau of Navigation, and the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery which is essentially a personnel agency. On the grounds of coordination and to reduce overhead, it would seem logical either to combine them into a division of personnel or to add them, as sections, to the present Office of Naval Operations. The latter is much preferable because it automatically would solve certain controversial matters such as training and distribution of personnel. The importance of these considerations to the development of naval material, which has been indicated, justifies their discussion in this paper.
The Secretary’s Office should include the accounting office, the budget office, and the General Board.
The budget office supplies the Secretary with his most effective coordinative machinery.
The General Board should be, as it now is, the Secretary’s advisory committee. It is qualified to examine any naval plan for soundness. It is not qualified to originate plans. With the proposed organization there would be in continuous existence agencies properly designed to originate all plans required by the Navy, thus relieving the General Board of work of this nature.
The Proposed System in Detail.—In examining the following concrete proposals the reader is requested to refer to the diagram of organization on Chart II.
1. The Navy Department should consist of the Secretary’s Office and the two major divisions of naval operations and naval material.
2. The Secretary’s office should consist of his staff and the General Board.
3. The Secretary’s staff should consist of the budget section and the accounting section. The chief of staff should be a line officer.
4. The General Board should advise the Secretary relative to proposed naval activities. It should be the board of review for major conceptions. It should not initiate conceptive work as regards either material or operation.
5. The division of naval operations should consist of the present agency of that name plus the present Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, the personnel branch of the present Bureau of Navigation, and that section of the present Bureau of Supplies and Accounts which deals with personnel and operative supplies.
6. The division of naval material should comprise all material functions now performed by the present Bureaus of Navigation, Construction and Repair, Ordnance, Engineering, Aeronautics, Yards and Docks, and Supplies and Accounts. The duties of these agencies should be rearranged and combined to the best advantage, essentially as hereafter indicated.
7. The division of naval material should consist of a conceptive agency, bureaus to perform the functions of design, production, and maintenance, and offices or agencies for inspection, experiments, testing, records, contracts, and procurement and storage. The five last mentioned offices or agencies are each auxiliaries to two or more of the proposed functional bureaus, therefore they should be administered directly under the chief of naval material who would coordinate their activities with the requirements of the bureaus. The other agency, inspection, should be an instrument of the conceptive agency.
8. The conceptive agency should constitute the staff of the chief of naval material. It has the functions of gathering information, digesting it, presenting it for consideration of the chief of naval material, working out conceptions under his direction, and supervising and coordinating their application through all the bureaus.
9. The staff of the chief of naval material should consist of a chief of staff, a superior division, a general division of four sections, and a financial division. The chief of staff should be a line officer.
10. The superior division should consist of two or more senior line officers representing tactics and strategy. Their functions are outlined elsewhere.
11. The general division would consist of sections as follows:
- The weapons section, consisting of line officers.
- The auxiliary functions section, also consisting of line officers.
- The elemental section, consisting of line and staff officers.
- The technical section, consisting entirely of technical officers.
12. The financial division would consist of supply officers.
13. The bureau of design would have the functions of preparing all general designs, and the preparation of all detail designs in coordination with the bureau of production. It would work also with the bureau of maintenance when that bureau requires design assistance. This coordination would be effected by the chief of naval material through the chiefs of bureaus.
14. The bureau of design should consist of a ship design division, a general design division and a number of decentralized detail design agencies located at productive plants. The chief of bureau should be a technical officer.
15. The ship design division should consist of sections for the essentially different types of ships. Its personnel should all be technical.
16. The general design division should consist of sections for the essential function and operational classes of material. Its personnel should be technical.
17. The detail design agencies are described elsewhere. Their personnel should be technical.
18. The bureau of production has the functions of coordinating with the bureau of design as to its detail design requirements, and of fabricating, assembling, erecting, and conducting the tests of all new naval material. It also aids the bureau of maintenance when necessary. The chief of bureau should be a technical officer.
19. The bureau of production should consist of divisions for planning, fabrication, minor assembling and major assembling and of centralized administrative offices and centralized plants for conducting the work.
The divisions will not be described in detail. Their personnel should be technical, except that the divisions for erecting and conducting tests should include line officers.
20. The bureau of maintenance has the functions of performing repairs and alterations to ships and their equipment, and of reporting to the conceptive agency and the bureau of design all information thereby secured which can be applied to improve naval material. The chief of bureau should be a technical officer. He should have a senior line assistant to assist him to cooperate effectively with the division of naval operations. Conflicting considerations would be coordinated by the office of the Secretary via the chiefs of divisions of naval material and naval operations.
21. The bureau of maintenance should consist of a centralized administrative office directing the maintenance work of repair ships and navy yards and arranging for coordination with other bureaus where necessary. The personnel should be chiefly technical but requires some line officers.
The nature of the separate maintenance agencies of naval stations and repair ships will not be discussed in detail.
22. The inspection agency has the functions of testing materials, inspecting fabricated parts, testing minor assemblies and major assemblies, and making preliminary tests on erections. It is the direct agent of the conceptive agency. It therefore should inform that agency of conceptive and technical applications which develop from its work. It should have the power to reject, in the name of the chief of naval material, all work found unsatisfactory. It should apply its functions to production and maintenance work. Its personnel should be chiefly technical but should include line officers for the final tests. Since these are the most important, the director of inspection should be a line officer.
23. The experimental agency has the functions of conducting development work required by the agency of conception and the bureaus. It supplies facilities and workmen, allowing the representatives of the primary agencies to direct the work. It must adjust their requirements to its facilities, priority being decided by the chief of naval material. The director of experiments should be a technical officer and his personnel should be technical.
24. The testing agency has the functions of conducting tests for the bureaus of production and maintenance. It should provide personnel and facilities, permitting the bureau personnel to direct the tests. It should conduct only tests which by their nature require special facilities, such as ranging torpedoes, proving guns, proving armor, and conducting trials of ships. Its director should be a technical officer but he requires line assistants as well as technical ones.
25. The records office has been fully described.
26. Contracts, procurement, and storage have been quite fully considered. They can well be combined into a single supply agency for the division of naval material, of which the director should be a supply officer. The personnel should consist of supply, technical and line officers.
27. Funds should be appropriated in a single budget, for the expenditure of which the Secretary of the Navy should be directly responsible. That officer should be free to utilize operative and maintenance funds, and savings from productive economies, to the general advantage of the naval service. The rights of Congress can be safeguarded by requiring an annual statement of the expenditure of funds in detail. Such a statement would be prepared, in any case, by the accounting section of the Secretary’s office.
28. A technical corps should be established, consisting of specialized branches for naval architecture, steam engineering, electrical engineering, ordnance engineering (guns, projectiles, armor, and explosives), aeronautics, optics, civil engineering, and other necessary lines.
The personnel should consist of commissioned officers, preferably graduates of the Naval Academy. Their training as such should initiate with sea service to enable their proclivities to be decided, then specialized postgraduate technical instruction, junior experience in inspection, production, maintenance, and design, subsequent special courses of instruction and, finally, higher assignments depending on their special abilities.
The selection, development, and assignments of these officers should be a special function in the central personnel office of the Navy. This work should be performed by technical officers nominated by the chief of naval material. It should be handled in accordance with his requirements.
29. Line officers should perform no purely technical duties whatsoever.
30. Line officers should specialize in line functions according to two classifications: namely, types of ships and battle functions.
31. Specialization in types of ships should consist of:
- Battleship and cruiser duty.
- Aviation duty.
- Destroyer duty.
- Submarine duty.
- Mine duty.
Specialization of this sort means constant sea assignment to vessels of a single type. There would be no serious objection to temporary diversions where necessitated by the general personnel situation, or to permanent changes when they appear desirable.
Duty on auxiliaries should be regarded as detached duty, unrelated to any of these, and therefore should not be specialized in, that is, no competent officer should be assigned to it continuously.
It is believed that line officers should not be assigned to classes (b) to (e) immediately upon graduation from the Naval Academy. Duty in vessels of class (a) is highly desirable for recent Naval Academy graduates to break them in to active service conditions.
32. Specialisation in battle functions should consist of:
- Gunnery, including fire control.
- Torpedo control.
- Bombing.
- Ship propulsion.
- Communications.
- Ship control, including navigation.
- Tactics.
- Strategy and major tactics.
These are named in the sequence in which they should be taken up. All line officers should specialize, first in any one of (a) to (c), then in each of the others in the order named, except (d). The latter is additional.
Specialization should not begin until after several years service as a junior officer on a battleship or cruiser. During this period the young officer should be shifted about until his bent is indicated. He then should receive a course of operational training in the line of his inclination, of which the usual duration should not exceed six months. Specialization in (a) to (c) or in (d) should be the longest in his career, though some young officers should, of course, go rather quickly into (e).
Before undertaking any new specialty the officer should receive an appropriate course of operational training.
33. There should be operational schools for all battle function specialties. That for (g) would be the junior war college course, shortened to six months, if necessary in order to secure enough graduates per year. That for (h) would be the senior war college course, of at least a year.
The other schools can be conducted to the best advantage on school ships because this will permit instruction by demonstration. It also will enable the division of naval material to secure prompt and intelligent service tests of new devices by sending them to the appropriate school ships.
34. Assignment to duty. In order to permit putting these essential line proposals into effect it will be necessary to adopt the following policies for assignments to duty:
- For the first few years all Naval Academy graduates should be sent to battleships and cruisers for general assignment. They should serve in several departments. At the end of that time selections should be made for line and technical specialization.
- Line officers should specialize continuously in classes of ships.
- Line officers should specialize successively in battle functions.
- Battle functional specialization should always start with operational training at a school. '
- Line officers should serve alternately afloat and ashore, approximately in the proportion of three and two years at first and two and two years toward the end, but the time spent at school should not be counted as either one or the other.
The latter requirement removes the present disadvantage which adheres to the junior war college course. Officers who now start their shore duty with this course cannot expect good assignments for their one remaining year of shore duty under the present policy. Those about to go to sea duty often cannot get assigned to the course unless their previous shore assignment has been curtailed.
If all operational training school courses are of six months duration there will be two periods per year at which changes on ships would be made. These periods can be fitted in readily with the normal operating schedule of the fleet.
It is realized that the existing number of line officers in the Navy might prevent the full development of the necessary system of operational instruction prior to assignment. This simply would indicate an essential need for more officers. Congress must be brought to see the necessity for having them, should this be the case. It would seem that in presenting this and other essential requirements the necessity for which can be logically demonstrated, the compelling argument should be this: A navy known to be inefficient is not only an unjustified public expense but is the basis for an unwarranted public confidence in the national defense.
Service Agreement.—To make possible many of these changes Congressional action is necessary. This is difficult to obtain unless service opinion is practically unanimous for the change. It also is very dangerous unless the proposed change is unqualifiedly sound and fully worked out.
For these reasons it is earnestly requested that wide and thorough service consideration be given to the proposals in this paper and the logic which attempts to support them. The department of the Naval Institute Proceedings devoted to discussion provides an excellent medium for debate.