Discussions

The Air Almanac

(See page 1261, September, 1934, Proceedings)

George W. Mixter, Cruising Club of America.—The article seems too modest a statement of the importance of Air Almanac principles to surface navigators, an importance which the Nautical Almanac office apparently fails to grasp. In fact, the inclusion of emasculated Air Almanac data in the 1934 Nautical Almanac has confused that standard publication. Rather the U. S. Navy should lead in the simplification of navigation, especially when such simplification would facilitate the training of navigators in an emergency. To one who accepts the last statement, the publication of a separate almanac, based on Air Almanac principles, seems essential.

A navigator's almanac is principally a series of tables, computed by astronomers, from which the navigator may deduce the body and L.H.A. of an observed study. The old Nautical Almanac functions With three kinds of time; hour angles must be computed in different ways for different bodies but always with the possibility of blunders when subtracting time; the resulting L.H.A. is in time units which the navigator who uses modern tables must convert into arc units. This is because astronomers think in terms of right ascension, while the navigator requires the geographical position of an observed body.

With Air Almanac principles, the astronomers perform, in advance, an important part of the work now done by Navigators. Right ascension and sidereal time are eliminated from the navigator’s work; the one kind of time used is based on the duration of a civil day; the G.H.A. is more quickly determined directly in arc units by simple addition. Thus the trained navigator has more time to think and the teaching of navigation is greatly simplified.

The importance of these matters sug­gests the following outline of the great ad­vances in navigation during the last century and a half:

1. The “discovery of longitude” by Harri­son’s chronometer.
2. Sumner’s discovery that a single observa­tion gives a line of position.
3. Saint-Hilaire’s determination of a Sumner line by altitude differences.
4. The Air Almanac’s direct tabulation of hour angles with the attendant simplification of the theory and practice of navigation.

Those familiar with the history of navigation know that each one of the first three of these developments required fifty years more or less for general ac­ceptance. So it may be with Air Almanac principles, which many believe will be the ultimate basis for all almanacs, whether for use at sea or in the air. The writer reached this conclusion early in 1933 after making an exhaustive study of the then Air Almanac and thereupon submitted to the Naval Observatory certain suggestions for further perfecting this new tool for navigators. The many detailed suggestions included: the sun at one opening, simplifi­cation of interpolation in the case of planets, and a new and simpler method of tabulating the moon data. It was re quested that a similar almanac be pub­lished in 1934 called the “U. S. Almanac,” or some other name that would remove prejudice and expedite its universal adop­tion.

Experience with the 1933 Air Almanac and with the combination Nautical Al­manac for 1934 confirms the belief that progress demands a separate almanac on Air Almanac principles in order to pro­vide a maximum of:

1. Accuracy in practice, which depends not only on the error limits of the tables but on the chance of blunders when entering the tables.
2. Speed, which depends on convenient ar­rangement and easy, visual interpolation.
3. Simplicity, which promotes accuracy and speed. The 1934 Nautical Almanac confuses the old data and is only a half-hearted presentation of the new. It is unlikely to lead a navigator to better methods and is confusing to the novice.
4. Student value. An almanac is not a text­book, but an arrangement which automatically indicates a common procedure for sun, star, planet or moon is helpful to all.

Why not a “U. S. Almanac?”

The Technical Aspects of Jutland

(See page 1249, September, 1934, Proceedings)

Lieutenant G. C. Weldin, U. S. Navy.—The point stressed time and again in Lieutenant Commander Brownson’s article is the distinction between a “uni­versal fleet” and a “local fleet,” that is, between a fleet designed as a “mobile force” able to operate in any of the seas of the World and a fleet designed to operate in one limited area, usually in local waters or in waters in which the nation possessing the fleet has particular interests. As ex­amples of the respective types are given the British and the German fleets which engaged at Jutland.

As a result of his study, the author draws certain conclusions and points out certain weaknesses in our United States Fleet of the present day. That the dis­tinction he has made in types of fleets is not a new one but is one which was well understood at least as far back as 1895 by one British authority (of whom Captain Mahan, our most distinguished strategist and tactician, thought sufficiently well to write an introduction for his book), is indicated in Ironclads In Action (“A Sketch of Naval Warfare from 1855 to 1895”) by H. W. Wilson.

An excellent statement of the proposi­tion, one which also shows how our ships and our position in that day were looked upon from the British point of view, found on page 32 of the reference:

The truth is that the requirements of our Navy are very different from those of other countries' others may be content to use their ships on their own coasts but we never. Our ironclads must be sea-keeping, be the loss of invulnerability what it may. The Monitor was no type for our own fleet and time, which brings many revenges, but demonstrated the foresight of our Admiralty and ability of our designers in the universal adoption of a high freeboard. The Warrior is still one of our effective ships; the Monitor would have long ago been gathered to the scrap-heap, had she survive the sea.

In view of the results of Jutland, the statement as to invulnerability is particularly illuminating and would almost seem  to qualify Wilson as a prophet. The final outcome of the British participation the World War likewise tends to show that this authority’s advocating of a “sea- keeping navy” was quite sound.

As to other World War problems— convoy, armed merchantmen—Wilson wrote:

Our very considerable cruiser squadrons in distant waters could be trusted to restrict the operations of our enemy. All the important strategic positions are watched as it is, so that the scene of our opponent’s assaults would probably be the northern and central Atlantic, besides the Mediterranean. Here convoy could be very well employed, and would suffice to keep off the improvised commerce-destroyer. Steamers cannot be destroyed in droves like sailing ships, for the reason that they can scatter, not having to consider the direction of the wind. A light armament of quick-firers would protect them from insignificant craft.

Those words, “improvised commerce-destroyer,” appear to so well describe the use to which submarines were converted y the Germans!

Commerce Destruction— Past and Future

See page 1513, November, 1934, Proceedings)

LIEUTENANT HARRY SANDERS, U. S. Navy.—Mr. Pratt has drawn an interesting comparison between commerce destruction as practiced in the War of 1812 and commerce destruction in the World War. He has shown that the American commerce raiders of 1812, the 44-gun frigates, were usually superior in speed and gun power to their adversaries and that superiority in these factors, coupled with a high degree of training, was largely the reason for their conspicuous success. He has noted the limitations of the submarine as a commerce raider and its failure to ring victory to Germany in the World War.

The limitations of the submarine will bear a little more careful analysis before it should be condemned as a failure in the role of commerce destroyer. To start with, and only as a matter of interest, we might consider a prediction of the future importance of the submarine made by one of England's greatest naval officers, Admiral the Earl St. Vincent. When that stern seaman was confronted with Robert Fulton's proposal to build his submarine for use against the French fleet, he said: Don’t look at it, and don't touch it. If we take it up, other nations will; and it will be the greatest blow at our supremacy on the sea that can be imagined.

In view of the terrible losses inflicted upon Egland by German submarines during the World War, and of subsequent efforts by Great Britain to abolish the submarine, this remark of St. Vincent's comes out of the dim past like a prophecy.

The results of the German submarine warfare can be appreciated only when we consider the losses which were inflicted upon the Allies. With the resumption of ruthless submarine warfare in 1917, the losses of allied and neutral vessels rose from 181 ships in January, aggregating 298,000 tons, to the sinking of 423 ships totaling 849,000 tons in April. Then came a time when 6,000,000 tons of ships were left available for all the shipping of the United Kingdom. And the losses rose to 1,000,000 tons a month. At this point the United States came into the war, and her own ships, augmented by seized German and Dutch vessels, helped to fill the gap. Moreover, the Americans gave a tremen­dous impetus to the anti-submarine cam­paign, and German submarines were di­verted toward American objectives. Thus the entry of the United States into the war saved Great Britain from facing the specter of starvation and complete sur­render.

But though the submarine campaign was finally overcome because a nation as powerful as the United States threw its weight against Germany late in the war, we cannot forget the terrible losses the sub­marines effected. Over 11,000,000 tons of allied shipping were sunk, and Great Britain lost 40 per cent of her merchant marine. And Germany never had over 140 submarines in commission at any one time, of which a maximum of 30 could be main­tained at sea.

In view of the record of the German sub­marine warfare, it is obvious that today the submarine constitutes the most po­tent and the most dangerous menace to sea-borne commerce. It is true that the leading naval powers agreed at London in 1930 to require the submarine to observe the same laws of visit and search that govern the activities of surface vessels. But when we consider the wholesale viola­tions, and the multiple interpretations, of international law during the World War, we can have little faith that the submarine will not be again free to bring unpre­cedented destruction to merchant ship­ping. The value and the employment of the submarine in the next war will depend upon the alignment and power of the op­ponents, their economic conditions, geo­graphical considerations, and, last but not least, the power and the attitude of neu­tral nations.

The Education and Training of Midshipmen

(See page 1438, October, 1933, Peoceedings)

Lieutenant G. C. Weldin, U. S. Navy. —In view of the present trend, as indicated in this and other articles which have from time to time appeared in the Proceedings, toward giving midshipmen a more liberal education along with the necessary tech­nical training, it is interesting to note an opinion and criticism of the Naval Acad­emy as it was conducted about the year 1883. The authority quoted would seem well qualified, being none other than James D. Bulloch, a former lieutenant in the U. S. Navy, who in his service during the Civil War as Confederate naval agent in England was the man most responsible for getting to sea the C.S.S. Alabama and other Confederate raiders. In his The Secret Service of the Confederate States in

Europe (page 91) appears the following:

There is an admirable naval school at Anna­polis; the course of study and the scientific train­ing of young officers for the United States Navy is very thorough, and embraces a large range of subjects. Some may and do think that both the education and the training are too strictly theore­tical, and too purely military, and that too little attention is now paid to practical seamanship. Some critics also say that the cadet midshipmen are kept so long and so exclusively employed at the pure mathematics, in the study of law, and at artillery and infantry drill, that they are too old when sent afloat for regular cruising to ac­quire the constitutional aptitude for the sea, and the smart active habit of handling ships, which the officers bred, say, thirty years ago possessed.

This impression is strengthened by the appearance and manoeuvering of the United States ships I have seen abroad since the war. . . .

Officers of the American navy are now proba­bly, as a class, more carefully and thoroughly educated than those of any other national marine at least in the theory of their profession, but there is great scarcity of native seamen, and it is not too much to say that there is not now a single ship on the United States Navy List which would be classed at all among the effective naval forces any European Power, and the United States could not send a squadron to sea upon a sudden emergency equal in the character of the ships to the fleet which even the little Republic of Chili bad in commission during the late war with Peru ...