Five destroyers out of every six have a complaint “other ship-itis.” A disease gradually increasing in severity from the second in column in a division to the unfortunate “tail-ender” and from the Asiatic squadron to the downtrodden Scouting Fleet destroyers.
This disease is incurable; as long as officers of the deck are human and fallible there will be jockeying back and forth, to keep in position, ten turns faster to close up, then ten turns slower to keep from climbing over the fantail of the “next ahead” who incidentally is always wrong (or so the story goes). As long as we have no battleships in China waters or zero weather in San Diego, just so long will destroyers be operating under different conditions for which the Rules for Engineering Performances have no allowance.
“Form H” and the Rules for Engineering Performances are carefully worked out charts, designed to show at the end of each month the efficiency of the engineering plant of each destroyer. It does that but not the comparative efficiency. It would if all destroyers operated under the same conditions. But they do not. It is dubious if any rating scheme would absolutely equalize the varying operating conditions for all the boats, but bearing in mind a few outstanding features of the present competition, the following suggestions are offered for consideration.
Points admitted generally or facts of record:
- A ship cruising independently at her chosen speed can make the best percentage of fuel used to fuel allowed. The most favorable operating conditions are a long, independent passage, fair moderate weather and freedom from distraction, when every auxiliary may be run at its most economical speed and no large reserve of power need be maintained.
- A ship called on for special gunnery duties outside her own practice schedule can not hope to compete with undisturbed boats. The Battle Fleet and Scouting Fleet destroyers, firing special experimental torpedo practices and chasing torpedoes for the battleships, cruisers and airplanes, are at a great disadvantage as compared with the Asiatic and European divisions. There is nothing more uneconomical or less efficient than “standing-by” or making five knots, with four boilers lit off, for hours at a time, ready to jump instantly to twenty-five or thirty knots for a brief period only.
- Because of the fact that most destroyer cruising in the battle or scouting fleets is done in division column formation, the division flagships reap the benefit of the “cruising alone” condition, while the ships following must, in increasing ratio be constantly juggling the engines and auxiliaries to maintain their position, and must also run with an excess of air to prevent smoking during these frequent changes of speed, all resulting in a loss in efficiency. The O.O.D. is torn between the Scylla of getting out of position and the Charybdis of incurring the Chief’s wrath by too frequent “faster or slower” bells.
- Again, the Battle and Scouting Fleet destroyers are handicapped by their series of maneuvers with the battleships. It is very necessary and vital that the fleets maneuver as a whole, but it plays hob with a destroyer’s score to pass a day jumping from five knots to thirty on a minute’s notice, or to spend a morning chasing madly off to lay a smoke screen, shooting up the tubes and shooting thousands of gallons of good fuel oil up the stack with no proportional allowance for benefit from it.
The above mentioned features all combine to pull down the average of the Scouting and Battle Fleet destroyers (the type of boat, too, has its drawbacks, but that is the builder’s fault and is partially covered by the different allowances.)
But when, for the last five years, the Asiatic destroyers have, as a class, regardless
of type, stood head and shoulders above the rest of the boats, there is evidently some reason over and above the merits of the personnel of the Asiatic station.
Here are some suggestions designed to at least furnish a basis for argument, out of which may come radical improvements in the competition.
- Continue the present standard allowances for boats cruising alone.
- Allow one hundred per cent or what is actually burned for all gunnery duties outside of division or squadron standard scheduled activities. Own gunnery exercises, common to all destroyers, are a legitimate function of the engineering performance.
- Allow a certain additional allowance depending on position in formation: say two per cent for No. two in column, three per cent for No. three, four per cent for No. four, and five per cent for Nos. five and six, and if division guide is keeping position on some other ship, one per cent for her.
(a) Alternative proposition: rotate
positions the flagship needs the experience share of duty as division guide and in other positions, the flagship needs the experience of keeping position in the middle of a column as well as any other place, and can handle the division fully as well from the center or the rear as from the head of the column. (This particularly for long cruises by divisions.)
- Maneuvering: Make the allowance one hundred per cent or what is actually burned from “Commence the scheduled exercise’’ to "Cease present exercise.”
It is not believed that the changes would result in any decrease in absolute efficiency: the Chief, even now, can do no more than bite his nails in anguish during maneuvers or torpedo chasing; he must furnish the steam and have a goodly reserve, too. And he does, in spite of his shrinking percentage.
The paper work and calculations might be slightly more involved, but the “Chief and his assistant,” who now groan perfunctorily over “Form H” because they know that their operating conditions deprive them of any chance to stand among the leaders, would be only too glad to put a little more time and effort on "Form H” if they felt that they had an equal chance with the others.
The engineering competition is a fine thing—it has increased the general efficiency of the destroyers beyond all expectations— but why not now make it of such a character that the true comparative efficiency in engineering of the various boats be shown and a real competition, with equal chances to all, be started, which will raise even higher the standards of economy?