The Relation of Aircraft to Sea-Power
(See page 731 this issue)
Commander Herbert S. Howard, (CC), U. S. Navy.—The article by Lieutenant Commander Leighton on “The Relation of Aircraft to Sea-power” is worthy of most careful study. This is not an article of the type to which those having to do with the design of ships became all too accustomed a few years ago, consisting of flat statements to the effect that under any and all conditions the airplane would wipe the surface ship off the sea, but a plea that the airplane should take a most important place in the scheme of things in a navy. It is the composition of a man who is not only experienced in naval aviation, but who has made himself a student of the relation of aircraft to the existing and probable future types of naval ships.
The article may be divided roughly into three principal parts. In one Lieutenant Commander Leighton expounds at considerable length the uses to which airplanes can and should be put in the fleet, as an auxiliary arm of naval ships, in scouting and obtaining information, in spotting for gunfire and in bombing attacks. In the second part, and in this part it may be said that prophecy enters for the first time, a battle is envisaged between a line of modern gunfiring battleships and a line of equally protected aircraft carriers. Finally, the third and last part comprises a criticism of the Lexington and Saratoga as airplane carriers, and makes a plea for more and smaller carriers rather than for a small number of very large carriers of the type of these ships.
In commenting upon the article, it is proposed to take up together the first and third parts, that is, the value of aviation as an auxiliary to the fleet and the changes which aviation may well bring about in minor characteristics of ships, and the question of the size and number of airplane carriers, and leave to the last a discussion of the combat of battleships versus airplane carriers, for in this combat are brought up all questions of the airplane as a major weapon carrier and its effect upon the design of major fighting ships.
The role of airplanes as adjuncts and auxiliaries to modern naval vessels is very well expressed, and the view that this role is so important as to demand that aviation be considered “an inseparable part of naval operations,” rather than “an addition to other naval activities,” must certainly be adopted. At the present time, and during the past few years, we have been adding aviation to the ships of the fleet, and have been endeavoring to do this without giving anything else up. In the design of new ships, aviation is, however, beginning to take its place as a feature to be considered equally with the guns in assigning space and general arrangements.
This comment applies to ships other than aircraft carriers, for in ships of this latter type everything must of course take second place to the facilities needed in connection with stowage, handling, and flying of airplanes.
As regards the size of carriers themselves, Lieutenant Commander Leighton makes the point that the Lexington and Saratoga are far too large and if it be agreed that on account of the cost involved, and the limit on total displacement allowed under the Limitation of Armaments Treaty, we can only have so much displacement in aircraft carriers, it is decidedly better to have a greater number of smaller carriers than a small number of large ones. With this view I am in entire accord. The Lexington and Saratoga are battle cruisers converted to airplane carriers and while they represent what may be considered the best that could be done with such converted ships, they probably do not represent what we would design if we were working from the ground up. These ships are very large and represent an immense value, not only in dollars aTid cents, but in the aviation strength of the fleet. With this great value they cannot he risked except when absolutely necessary. It is of the essence of fighting ships that they must be risked. If either the Lexington or Saratoga be lost, one-half the strength of the fleet in aircraft carriers is lost, and all planes needing servicing of any kind are driven to use one landing and flying deck instead of two. Moreover, in a large campaign the activities of the fleet may extend over an immense area, and within this area, aircraft carriers will be needed at various points; for scouting and the service of information in some locations, and to give air strength to the battle fleet in others.
Aircraft carriers can be designed of about one-third the displacement of the Saratoga, and therefore at about one-third the cost, but with almost the same airplane carrying capacity, by sacrificing guns, armor, and some speed. An airplane carrier is vulnerable anyway and such a carrier is really but little more liable to damage, certainly as far as being an airplane carrier is concerned, than the big ships. For the same money, and for the same amount of displacement, we can put almost three times as many airplanes at sea in these smaller carriers, and thereby have carriers available at more points throughout the area of operations.
All the arguments appear to be on the side of the smaller carrier, and that the Navy Department holds this point of view is shown by the request of the Secretary of the Navy for a program of carriers of under 14,000 tons displacement each.
Finally, there remains to consider what may be said to be the most important point, and the most forward-looking point in the article, in which Lieutenant Commander Leighton envisages the combat between the fleet of battleships of today and the fleet of aircraft carriers. No definite statements are made, and none is apparently intended, but the impression left on the mind of the reader is that the battleships would fare badly at the hands of the carriers.
In this battle, it is gunfire against bombing. The gun ships have their spotting and protective aircraft, but their fighting range is limited to 30,000 yards and beyond this range they are absolutely impotent. The carriers have as their weapon the bombing planes. As Lieutenant Commander Leighton says, “Bombing is equivalent basically to gun fire. The bombing airplane is to the ship which carries it fundamentally the same as the gun is to the ship which carries the gun.” The great advantage on the side of the carriers is the great range at which their attack can be delivered, well out of the range of the opposing force.
To support the view of the possible superiority of the carriers in this combat, reference is made to the fact that the torpedo, with its individual blow more disastrous to a ship than a single shell, has offered a serious challenge to the gun, while the gun has maintained its superiority solely due to superior range. There is more in it than that. The gun has greater range undoubtedly, but it has also far greater accuracy. Moreover, ships are now built to withstand the effects of several torpedo hits, and the fact that a modern battleship has received two or even three torpedo hits, while it will no doubt greatly reduce her effectiveness, does not mean that she is out of action. When the torpedo and the torpedo-boat were in their early stages, the French decided to place their faith completely in this weapon, basing their argument upon the immensely destructive blow of the torpedo. They practically stopped building large ships, and when in the contest between attack and defense, the secondary gun and the structure of the ship balanced the menace of the torpedo, the French Navy had sunk from a firmly held second place to a position far lower.
As far as great ranges are concerned, a point comes in which is not made in this article. That is the question of ammunition supply. At great ranges, or in indirect fire (to which reference is made), accuracy is never as great as at shorter ranges. If a ship could carry an unlimited supply of ammunition, this probably would not matter, for the opposing fleet would eventually be sunk. However, ships are strictly limited as to the amount of ammunition they can carry, by requirements of both space and weight, and if this ammunition is expended at great ranges, and the enemy is not destroyed during this period, there will be no ammunition left when the enemy finally succeeds in closing in.
In airplane bombing the same argument does not hold directly, for the accuracy of the bomb-dropping airplane is not affected by the distance at which bombing takes place. However, this question of ammunition supply does form a very important phase of the subject of bombing. In this case it is not bombs which may run short, but the airplanes themselves, that is, the guns, or projectors, of the carriers. Every plane lost is a gun lost to the carriers, and while airplanes can be replaced more easily than guns, replacement airplanes will probably not be available in time of battle.
In this assumed combat, then, we see the carriers launch the first attack with their bombing planes. The carriers are beyond the range of the battleships’ guns so no direct reply can be made. However, against the planes themselves the battleships are not wholly helpless. They have antiaircraft batteries and their own fighting planes. No claim is made that these will be a perfect defense, but it is some defense and before the bombing planes get in their attack losses will undoubtedly occur, and in these losses the carrier fleet loses guns, not simply projectiles.
The battleship fleet under the attack may be heavily hit, directly, and indirectly from bombs exploding alongside, and losses undoubtedly will be suffered. However, for the battleship fleet there is nothing to do but to force its way in toward its opponents, suffering losses on the way, but causing at the same time losses in the planes of the carriers. The carriers must give way, always keeping out of range, and suffering losses in their weapons, the airplanes. If, however, the carriers must defend a fleet of transports or train vessels, the time will come when they must make a stand and allow themselves to be brought under the guns of the battleship fleet, and at that time they may well be in position where their weapons are reduced to ineffectiveness while the battleships have expended hardly a round of ammunition.
By this discussion, I do not pretend to say that battleships will always win in a direct knock-down and drag-out fight with airplane carriers, but it is worth pointing out that everything will hardly be all one way. Moreover, in the discussion I have carefully refrained from referring to the question of weather, which may effect the performance of the airplanes, and which must be kept in mind. A battleship is a fighting machine which can keep on the job twenty- four hours a day, for weeks and months at a time, and unless a substitute can meet the same rigid requirement we should hesitate long before we accept it.
The article is most interesting and one which bears careful study. The points made for smaller and more numerous aircraft carriers are well taken and are most convincing, and with these all must agree. Also, it is felt that the argument that aviation should more and more form an integral part of all naval ships and naval activities, rather than something additional to the present navy, must be realized. The time has hardly come to substitute aircraft carriers for battleships, but the fact remains that airplanes possess qualities which augment almost every feature of the pure fighting qualities of naval ships, and the potentialities of this comparatively new weapon should be used to the utmost in our naval ships in their strategical and tactical operations.
Naval Reserve Officers’ Training Corps
(See page 441, June, 1928, Proceedings)
Commander J. J. London, U. S. Navy.— Captain Nimitz ends the above article: “Has the government made a wise investment in the establishment of the Naval R. O. T. C. ? We think that in the passage of time this question will be answered in the affirmative.” The writer agrees with Captain Nimitz that time will answer the above question in the affirmative.
The maximum benefit that the government can derive from this investment is to have these student officers become well trained reserve officers who will have sincere attachment for the Navy. It is believed that the maximum participation in the summer cruise provided by the government will best produce the above result. In addition to getting a liking for the sea and a seagoing Navy, the student officers will form attachments which will give them a greater incentive to perfect themselves in their Navy work and to have a sincere pride in keeping up their Navy contacts after they become reserve officers. Only Navy men can realize the great difference that will exist between the student officer who participates in cruises and gets a seagoing experience, and between the one who absorbs only the theoretical instruction at the university.
With the above in view, the Navy Department has carried out very liberal plans calling for intensive summer cruises. The second summer cruises have just been completed and have been pronounced complete successes. As a result of the cruise last year on the Pacific coast, and a cruise on the Atlantic coast, the naval units at the six educational institutions were generally well represented on the cruise this year. The U.S.S. Pennsylvania took the student officers of the University of California on a fifteen-day cruise to Victoria, British Columbia, and, upon its completion, took the naval unit from the University of Washington on a fifteen-day cruise to San Francisco.
The Department was able to utilize the Wyoming for a cruise with the Atlantic coast naval units. The number of student officers participating in these two cruises from the six units were as follows:
|
| Total | Per |
| Cruise | Strength | Cent |
University of Washing- |
|
|
|
ton .................... | 42 | 93 | 45-2 |
University of Cali- |
|
|
|
fornia.................. | 39 | 94 | 41-5 |
Harvard ................ | 24 | 77 | 31.2 |
Yale ...................... | 43 | 97 | 44-3 |
Northwestern ........ | Si | 64 | 79-7 |
Georgia School of |
|
|
|
Technology ........ | 72 | 91 | 79-1 |
| 271 | 516 | 525 |
It will be noted that 271 student officers from the six units participated in the summer cruise of 1928. The above numbers represent an average of fifty-three per cent of the total strength of the various units, ranging from thirty-one per cent of the Harvard unit to over seventy-nine per cent of the Northwestern and Georgia Tech units. The large attendance from the latter two units is partly accounted for by the fact that a trip to the seaboard and to the ports visited means even more to the students of those units than to those of other units. With all units, the problem of summer work, and, in some cases, of trips abroad, have to be solved. It is hard to expect or ask that students give up necessary work or a trip abroad in order to take the cruise.
The Department’s policy has been to allow and to encourage all members of the naval units to take the cruise. Recognizing the great benefit which would be derived, the cruises have been planned and carried out so as to induce the. student officers to repeat them. However, the instructive and training features of these cruises have not been lost sight of, and an extensive and intensive course of instruction has been carried out. Due to the limited period—fifteen days—training similar to a midshipman’s practice cruise cannot be utilized. It must be realized that the student officer must cover the material and operation of a battleship in fifteen days. Accordingly, features are selected for his instruction which would be of most benefit to him in his theoretical training. This instruction is supplemented by notebook work. On the Atlantic coast cruise, students were classed first-cruise men and second-cruise men and not as freshmen and sophomores. The instruction for first-cruise men was as outlined above. For second-cruise men the students were given a greater amount of training. They were assigned in the forenoon by squads to separate stations, such as turret divisions, broadside divisions, and engineering divisions, where they became understudies to the division officers in the work of the divisions for that forenoon. In the afternoon they were assigned in a group for practical work such as boresighting the guns of a broadside battery, organization of a skeleton gun crew, control and communication features of a broadside battery, and stations in the engineering department during warming-up processes preparatory to getting underway. In addition, they had regularly scheduled watches.
The itinerary of the Atlantic coast cruise was made out having in view certain recreational and sightseeing features. The cruise proper began June 21, at Boston and ended at the same port July 4, the ship having visited Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Portland, Maine. Entertainments were given on board ship and ashore at each port, and, it is believed, were the source of pleasant social contact by the student officers. The student officers were made to feel on board ship that they were embryo officers and were encouraged to come in contact with all officers on board ship from the admiral down. The ship’s officers generously gave of their time to answer questions and to talk with the student officers on all occasions. The junior officers’ mess entertained four student officers each night at sea and the wardroom gave a buffet luncheon to the sixty members of the sophomore class, in which the commander of the scouting fleet was an interested participant.
The Secretary of the Navy took a particular interest in the summer cruise of 1928 and made it a point to cruise with the units from Portland, Maine, to Boston. During this time he inspected the several units and delivered an address to them, in addition to talking at length with individual members. The visit of the Secretary of the Navy on board is believed to have caused these student officers to be highly impressed with the importance of the training which they are receiving from the government.
Editor’s Note: Commander London has been professor of naval science and tactics at the Georgia School of Technology for the past two years and has been in charge of the combined R.O.T.C. cruises during these years.
An Unidentified Picture
(Sec Plate XVI, April, 1928, Proceedings)
Captain A. Farenholt (MC), U. S. Navy.—In the April issue of the Proceedings of the Naval Institute, Volume 54, Plate XVI, there appears a copy of an oil painting, formerly the property of Admiral Farragut, with the statement that it is “presumed to be a picture of Admiral Farragut’s European Squadron off Gibraltar, 1867, with U.S.S. Franklin at left.” This presumption is without doubt in error. The Franklin is clearly the large steam frigate seen to the right as the picture is faced and the likeness to that vessel or to one of her general class is quite faithful. The vessels on her starboard hand, or to the left of the picture, are three “two-deck” ships, probably 74’s, and a large “three-decker” of approximately 110 guns. The United States, in 1867, possessed no 74’s in Europe and the only “three-
decker” to fly the flag was the unfortunate Pennsylvania, destroyed at Norfolk in 1861. The configuration of the land, seen in the distance, is not at all like that of Gibraltar, viewed from any angle, and the small pulling boats shown are not those frequenting the western end of the Mediterranean. I am of opinion that the painting represents the Franklin passing a foreign squadron, in all probability a British squadron, somewhere off the Italian coast, quite possibly near the bay of Naples. The large “three-decker” is presumably the flagship and she shows a square flag at the fore truck and a hoist of several signal flags at the main. The Franklin also displays a hoist at the main truck. The foreign vessels have all let fly their jib halliards. This is an old form of salute and I remember seeing an Austrian corvette salute Admiral Dewey off Cavite in 1898 in that manner, accompanied of course by the customary gun salute.
Diesels for Naval Auxiliary Ships
(See page 461, June, 1928, Proceedings)
Brockholst Livingston.—Lieutenant Dierdorff has carried the discussion of Diesel engines for naval vessels to the realm of auxiliary ships. We are tempted to remark that this is where the discussion should have begun—as did the discussion of electric drive by its use in the former collier Jupiter, now the carrier Langley. Of course, as the writer of the article has mentioned, the Maumee and Fulton did embody crude installations of Diesel engines. However, a disinclination to experiment in war time undoubtedly led to abandonment of a praiseworthy attempt to introduce Diesels in this field. Nevertheless, we are forced to remind those interested that ten years have elapsed since the War, and little—in fact, nothing—has been done toward introducing Diesel propulsion into naval vessels, with the exception of submarines, and as auxiliary generating sets on some of the larger combatant ships. It was at first expected that the new river gunboats would be Diesel- driven but this was abandoned, due in part, undoubtedly, to the conditions of the country where they are to operate.
Since the War we have built a number of naval auxiliaries, including tenders of 10,000 tons and 7,000 h.p.; ammunition ships of like tonnage and 6,700 h.p.; cargo ships of 11,000 tons and 2,500 h.p.; ocean tugs and mine sweepers of about 1,000 tons and 1,400-2,000 h.p, Any one of these types might have been equipped with Diesel engines and upheld the conclusions arrived at by Lieutenant Dierdorff. We wonder why advantage was not taken of merchant marine experience, and the ships thus fitted. However, we are sure there were reasons —and good ones—for carrying out the original designs of these ships.
To meet foreign competition, the United States Shipping Board was authorized to spend $25,000,000 in reconditioning steam ships into Diesel freighters. Advantage has been taken of this authorization and some of the converted ships are now engaged on the long-haul routes and are proving worth while. Foreign vessels especially constructed as Diesel ships are even more satisfactory. The Shipping Board has found it profitable to convert existing ships to Diesel drive. The Navy believes in modernizing its combatant ships. Why not convert some of the naval auxiliaries to conform to existing merchant marine practice?
As Lieutenant Dierdorff states, we do not advocate replacing the engines of such ships as the Camden, whose age would make the replacement an economic faux pas. However, we do strongly advocate converting vessels such as the store ship Yukon, the cargo ships Capella and Spica, the oiler Sepulga, and the mine sweepers Eider and Lapwing. These ships are out of commission but have steam-driven sister ships in commission. Upon their conversion they could replace the present active vessels and these could be decommissioned either permanently or be likewise converted. It would be interesting to have a Diesel-engined mine-sweeping division to compete with the other steam-driven ones.
It seems logical that if the merchant service finds Diesels more desirable, the naval service should also in similar vessels. As this discussion was begun, the chief of naval operations announced that the oiler Raniapo would be employed for the transportation of fuel oil from San Pedro to the Manila- Cavite area. Certainly a Diesel ship could be employed on this run more satisfactorily and more economically. Employment of naval vessels on duties of this kind is one of the necessary evils of supply and consequently should be done as cheaply and with as little loss to the combatant side as possible. Diesels would contribute something to accomplishing these ends.
The day of Diesel-driven capital ships and other combatant vessels may be distant but there is no apparent reason why naval auxiliaries should not reap the benefits of merchant marine experience. If the ultraconservatives of the Hill were willing to appropriate funds to convert our merchant ships, it seems they might be persuaded to furnish the means of converting some of our later auxiliaries, especially if we can show them such convincing figures as Lieutenant Dierdorff has supplied for our consideration.