DURING the last two or three years a movement has been on foot to return to the type force organization of the fleet that existed before the World War. At present we have a task force organization. Its merits are not often known even by individuals who presume to discuss its demerits.
The writer can think of nothing in the Navy he knew under the old type organizazation that recommends a return to it. Briefly it would consist of a commander in chief in immediate administrative command of six type forces—battleships, cruisers, destroyers, submarines, aircraft, mine layers, and sweepers. Each type force has an admiral who conducts administration and routine exercises and training for his type and, in theory, develops the tactics for his type. The last theory as to tactics collapses in parts, as the types are used in war in fleets, and only in fleet exercises can the role or organization of the type be determined. You need a fleet or force composed of types to develop fleet tactics. A type has no relation to itself, only as to organization, coordination, and employment with others—unless independently employed, as in night destroyer attack or in submarine reconnaissance or patrol.
The present task organization was adopted because certain men felt when war came in 1917 that the high command as a group had not been trained for the jobs that befell them, for our system had provided training only for one man and he arrived at the top at or near the retiring age. It is true that the 1916 building program had been authorized and this affected the organization adopted, for a battle-cruiser wing as a support force for the scouting fleet was in sight.
The present organization is an attempt to train four commanders and their staffs and to develop a theory, the tactics, and the methods for conducting the four functions of a combatant war fleet, and to create a commander in chief who would be in a position to devote his time to consideration of the strategical and tactical employment of fleets. If he arrives at this position after holding administrative command of another fleet, he should not feel he has been deprived, as it were, of his function, administrative command. If he feels he does not have direct command frequently enough, the Navy Department should devote more time to the concentration or let him take each fleet out at other times for tactical exercises.
Four factors only have lifted us out of the mediocrity that characterized our fleet development before the World War:
- What we saw and acquired abroad in the war.
- The present fleet organization.
- The annual concentration in its strategical and tactical phases.
- The force practices, gun and torpedo.
The present organization has one merit seldom realized: there is competition and a standard, as there are two fleets. The competing fleet commanders have an observing superior. Our gunnery competition is based on competition. We see the gunnery results as they are measurable, and are published annually as standards of excellence, with letters to meritorious personnel.
The competition in operation of fleets exists. It has had the same effect as gunnery competition; but, having no method of expression as publicity, its beneficial effect is not so obvious, and the view has been taken that because one fleet showed more poorly here or there the way to cure this was to combine them. This argument is fallacious. Where there is no standard by competitive effort mediocrity will result. To bring one fleet up, you should send your best officers to it. Longitude determines nothing as to merit, although operating conditions may. The Scouting Fleet has the more difficult schedule, the poorer operating ground, and the worst material; it should have the best of the details and then would always stand up.
If any reorganization is made, the function of training the high command group should have first consideration. The Control Force as conceived had an important training function. The department little by little acted, and has left it nothing of its original function as to types, material, and operation but its name.
Type force organization achieved nothing in this Navy of extraordinary merit. I judge by what our standard was compared to the British and Germans in 1914-19. We are already overdone on type operation. Our deficiency is, has been, and perhaps always will be, a list capable of the exercise of the high command in war and a fleet system to support them. It is not attainable or furthered by type force organization.
The writer has no suggestions for reorganization to offer; he is merely reciting why the present organization exists and what it has done. If it is maintained, the support force of the Scouting Fleet might be the best two battleship divisions, and the Scouting Fleet could be designated west and the Battle Fleet, east. We should continue to have training and competition in the exercise of high command, and if necessary should lengthen the concentration and shorten the competitive exercises—in brief, worry less about our capacity to shoot or steam. We should not acquiesce in any curtailment of the training at tasks which fall to high command even though we may not assume that present training methods will insure the leaders required in war.
One thing is certain—one fleet of type force organizations and one fleet commander will not produce the leadership required. We should know this, because we should not forget experience. No radical change in human nature has occurred since we had type force organization. One sees the same men, but better methods.