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ABSTRACT
This article explores the development of tactical thought in the Royal Navy during the period leading up to the First World War, and concludes that the direction of tactical thinking and Admiralty construction policy contradict claims put forward by Jon T. Sumida that in 1912 Admiral Sir John Jellicoe developed a ‘technical-tactical synthesis’ that called for fighting at medium ranges (7,000–10,000 yards).
Notes
1 Arthur Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, 5 vols. (London: OUP, 1961-1978), Vol. 3,5. This article was originally published with errors. This version has been corrected. Please see Erratum (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2015.1082272).
2 Jon Tetsuro Sumida, ‘A Matter of Timing: The Royal Navy and the Tactics of Decisive Battle, 1912–1916’, Journal of Military History 67/1 (Jan. 2003), 85–136. The following summary is based primarily on this article and on idem, ‘Expectation, Adaptation, and Resignation: British Battle Fleet Tactical Planning, August 1914–April 1916’, Naval War College Review 60/3 (Summer 2007), 101–22; idem, In Defence of Naval Supremacy: Finance, Technology, and British Naval Policy 1889–1914 (London: Routledge 1989), esp. 253–4; idem, ‘The Quest for Reach: The Development of Long-Range Gunnery in the Royal Navy, 1901–1912’, in S.D. Chiabotti (ed.), Tooling for War: Military Transformation in the Industrial Age (Chicago: Imprint Publications, 1996), 49–96.
3 Sumida, ‘A Matter of Timing’, 87.
4 Sumida, ‘A Matter of Timing’, 87. It should be noted that Sumida does reference tactical documents, but his failure to list such documents among the materials consulted emphasises their relative unimportance to his hypothesis.
5 Matthew Allen, ‘The Deployment of Untried Technology: British Naval Tactics in the Ironclad Era’, War in History 15/3 (July 2008), 269–93.
6 H.J. May, ‘Notes on the Tactics for Ships and Weapons of the Present Day’, Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, part 1: 41/227 (Jan. 1897), 48–82; part 2: 41/228 (Feb. 1897), 201–23.
7 May, ‘Notes on the Tactics…’, part 1, 60.
8 May, ‘Notes on the Tactics…’, part 2, 213.
9 [Kew, United Kingdom: The National Archives], ADM[iralty papers] 144/17, Admiralty to Admiral Sir Compton Edward Domvile, Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet, 26 Oct. 1903. I am indebted to Simon Harley for bringing this document to my attention.
10 Fisher to Selborne, 19 May 1902, Arthur Marder (ed.), Fear God and Dread Nought: The Correspondence of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher of Kilverstone (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 1952), Vol. 1,240; emphasis in the original.
11 P.K. Kemp (ed.), The Papers of Admiral Sir John Fisher,2 vols. (London: Navy Records Society 1960–64), Vol. 1,:222.
12 Kemp, The Papers of Admiral Sir John Fisher, Vol. 2,277.
13 ADM 144/17, Admiralty to Domvile, 26 Oct. 1903.
14 Stephen McLaughlin, ‘Equal Speed Charlie London: Jellicoe’s Deployment at Jutland’, in John Jordan (ed.), Warship 2010 (London: Conway 2010), 122–39.
15 Quoted in Arthur Marder, The Anatomy of British Sea Power: A History of British Naval Policy in the Pre-Dreadnought Era, 1880–1905, reprint ed. (New York: Octagon Books 1976), 517.
16 [Greenwich, United Kingdom, National Maritime Museum], R.A.R. Plunkett, Modern Naval Tactics (Confidential; London: HMSO 1909), 25.
17 NMM, May Papers, MAY/9B, ‘Tracings of Illustrations of Deployment From Three Divisions at Unequal Speed’, 26 April 1909. For other deployment methods, see [Portsmouth, United Kingdom, Admiralty Library], Admiral Sir William May, Notes on Tactical Exercises. Home Fleet, 1909–1911 (19 Sept. 1911), Appendix I, 432–9; Frederic Dreyer, The Sea Heritage: A Study of Maritime Warfare (London: Museum Press, 1955), 158–63.
18 B. McL. Ranft (ed.), The Beatty Papers: Selections from the Private and Official Correspondence of Admiral of the Fleet Earl Beatty (Aldershot: Navy Records Society, 1989–93), Vol. 1,457.
19 ‘Admiralty Policy in Battleship Design’, Kemp, Papers of Admiral Sir John Fisher, Vol. 1,319.
20 Sumida, ‘A Matter of Timing’, 99–100.
21 For Custance’s views, see NMM, Noel Papers, NOE/13c, ‘Lecture on Battle Tactics by Vice-Admiral Sir Reginald N. Custance, KCMG., Delivered at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich’, 18 Jan. 1905; for Sturdee, see [London, United Kingdom, British Library]: Jellicoe Papers, Add. MSS 49012, ff. 56–60, ‘Dispositions for the “Approach”’, 10 Sept. 1915; for Richmond, see Arthur J. Marder (ed.), Portrait of an Admiral: The Life and Papers of Sir Herbert Richmond (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1952), passim; for Hall (later head of the famous Room 40), see NMM, Mercury Papers, MER/39, paper by Hall dated 6 Nov. 1907.
22 Sumida, ‘Quest for Reach’, 72–5; idem, ‘A Matter of Timing’, 87, 103–4.
23 Edward Bradford, Life of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Arthur Knyvet Wilson (London: John Murray 1923), 171; ADM 1/7597, ‘Exercises Carried Out at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich’, 5.
24 The Russo-Japanese War, Citation1904–1905: Reports from Naval Attachés (Nashville, TN: The Battery Press 2003), 148–55, 162–6, 209, 366–78.
25 Admiralty, Naval Ordnance Department, A Study of the Events of the Russo-Japanese War from the Point of View of Naval Gunnery (1906?). Photocopy courtesy of Fred Milford.
26 Sumida, ‘Quest for Reach’, 59.
27 ADM 1/8056, ‘Revised Instructions for the Expenditure of Heavy and Light Gun Ammunition’, 31 Oct. 1909.
28 British Library, Jellicoe Papers, Add. MSS 49012, fo. 8. ‘My War Orders and Dispositions…. First Draft’. Although these orders are undated, they were presumably written before the Second Division was redesignated the Second Squadron in May 1912. The version given here differs from that in A.T. Patterson (ed.), The Jellicoe Papers: Selections from the Private and Official Correspondence of Admiral of the Fleet Earl Jellicoe of Scapa (London: Navy Records Society 1966), Vol. 1,24, and follows Brooks, who shows that the text printed in Jellicoe Papers incorporates handwritten changes that may have been made at a later date; in all cases these changes increase the ranges. See John Brooks, ‘Grand Fleet Battle Tactics: From the Edwardian Age to Jutland’, in Robert J. Blyth, Andrew Lambert and Jan Ruger (eds.), The Dreadnought and the Edwardian Age (Farnham: Ashgate 2011), 183 n.12.
29 Sumida, ‘A Matter of Timing’, 103–5.
30 Admiralty Library, Backhouse Papers, Box 1, Folder T94621, Callaghan, ‘Conduct of a Fleet in Action. Commander-in-Chief’s Instructions’, 14 March 1914.
31 Admiralty Library, Important Questions dealt with by DNO, Vol. II Note (1913).
32 R.H. Bacon, The Life of John Rushworth, Earl Jellicoe (London: Cassell 1936), 179–80.
33 Bacon, Life ofJellicoe, 180; Brooks, Dreadnought Gunnery, 68.
34 Sumida, In Defence of Naval Supremacy, 250; idem, ‘A Matter of Timing’, 128.
35 Sumida, ‘A Matter of Timing’, 94.
36 Ibid., 116, n.105.
37 ADM 137/1621, ‘Report of Proceedings by Commander Richard T. Down, R.N., during visit to Washington – 6th May to 27th June’, 5 July 1917, 6.
38 Sumida, In Defence of Naval Supremacy, 205.
39 Callaghan, ‘Conduct of a Fleet in Action. Commander-in-Chief’s instructions’; emphasis in the original.
40 Jellicoe Papers, ‘My War Orders’, fo. 8.
41 ADM 137/260, Home Fleets General Order No. 14, 5 Nov. 1913.
42 Admiralty Library, Manual of Gunnery for His Majesty’s Fleet (C.B. 142), 1915, Vol. I, 116 (referring to the results of the Empress of India trials of 1913).
43 Sumida, ‘A Matter of Timing’, 100. The ‘change of range rate’ is a measure of how quickly the range is closing or opening, usually expressed in yards per minute. The rate would be at its greatest when two ships (or fleets) are approaching one another head-on or heading directly away from one another; e.g., two ships steaming directly toward one another, each travelling at 18 knots (600 yards/minute) would close at a combined rate of 1,200 yards/minute.
44 Katherine Epstein, Torpedo: Inventing the Military-Industrial Complex in the United States and Great Britain (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 2014), 195–6, suggests that Jellicoe’s support for a high-speed torpedo setting of 45 knots, with a running range of 4,500 yards, ‘lends support to the thesis… that Jellicoe envisioned taking the fleet well within enemy torpedo range, and suggests that Jellicoe contemplated not only a decisive gunnery advantage at medium ranges but also firing a torpedo salvo before turning away’. However, a 4,500-yard range is well short of even the closest range (7,000 yards) of the ‘technical-tactical synthesis’, so it is difficult to see how this supports the case.
45 Sumida, ‘A Matter of Timing’, esp. 88–92.
46 Admiralty Library, Backhouse Papers, Box 1, Folder T94609, Callaghan, covering memorandum to W.W. Fisher, ‘Tactics of Two Fleets Engaged on Opposite Courses, 20 April 1914’.
47 Sumida, ‘A Matter of Timing’, 92.
48 This subject is covered in detail by Brooks, ‘Grand Fleet Battle Tactics’.
49 Brooks, ‘Grand Fleet Battle Tactics’, esp. 189–200.
50 ADM 116/1341, Grand Fleet Battle Orders, Addendum No. 2, 31 Aug. 1914; compare this to his prewar view, in Jellicoe Papers, ‘My War Orders’, fo. 12.
51 Brooks, ‘Grand Fleet Battle Tactics’, 200–2. For examples of Jellicoe’s concerns about German superiority in numbers of destroyers, see Jellicoe Papers, Vol. 1,51–2, 75–7.
52 Sumida, ‘A Matter of Timing’, 105.
53 Sumida, ‘Quest for Reach’, 54, 65.
54 ADM 1/7506, ‘Combined Manoeuvres Mediterranean and Channel Fleets, 1901’, ‘Remarks by Umpires’.
55 ‘Admiralty Policy in Battleship Design’, Kemp, Papers of Admiral Sir John Fisher, Vol. 1,325.
56 [Cambridge, United Kingdom, Churchill Archive Centre]: Fisher Papers, FISR 8/15, ‘Proposals Respecting Designs of the New Vessels to be Laid Down in 1906–7 and Employment of Armed Mercantile Cruisers’, 4–5, courtesy of John Brooks.
57 Nicholas Lambert, ‘Admiral Sir Francis Bridgeman-Bridgeman (1911–1912)’, in Malcolm H. Murfett, (ed.), The First Sea Lords: From Fisher to Mountbatten (Westport, CN: Praeger 1995, 55–74), 60.
58 See Ranft, The Beatty Papers, 59, 73–4, 91, 93, 97; CAC, Drax Papers, DRAX 4/1, Callaghan to Beatty, 11 Dec. 1913, and Beatty to Callaghan, 27 Dec. 1913. I am grateful to John Brooks for bringing this correspondence to my attention.
59 Lambert, ‘Admiral Sir Francis Bridgeman-Bridgeman’, 60.
60 Univ. of California, Irvine: Marder Papers, Box 1, letter, B.B. Schofield to Arthur Marder, 14 Dec. 1964.
61 CAC, Drax Papers, DRAX 4/1, Callaghan to Beatty, 11 Dec. 1913.
62 R.A. Burt, British Battleships of World War One, 2nd ed. (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press 2012), 277–99.
63 On the Canadian ships, which were to be under the operational control of the Admiralty, see Nicholas Tracy (ed.), The Collective Naval Defence of the Empire, 1900–1940 (Aldershot: Navy Records Society 1997), 166–9, 178–80, 183-6, 203–11; Ron Barrie et al., ‘Various Canadian Warships’, Warship International 32/2 (1995), 205–8; and David K. Brown, ‘Various Canadian Warships’, Warship International 33/2 (1996), 211–13.
64 TNA, CAB[inet papers] 37/115/39, Winston Churchill, ‘Oil Fuel Supply for His Majesty’s Navy’ (16 June 1913).
65 It may be noted in passing that Nicholas Lambert has argued that the decision to cancel the sixth fast battleship, which was to have been named Agincourt, was actually made before the outbreak of war, but even if true this does not change the fact that fast battleships were still being projected for construction after the supposed adoption of the ‘technical-tactical synthesis’; see Nicholas Lambert, Sir John Fisher’s Naval Revolution (Columbia: Univ. of South Carolina Press 1999), 296–303. Moreover, Lambert’s contention is disputed by Christopher Bell, ‘Sir John Fisher’s Naval Revolution Reconsidered: Winston Churchill at the Admiralty, 1911–1914’, War in History 18/3 (July 2011), 333–56.
66 Sumida, ‘A Matter of Timing’, 104.
67 Bell, ‘Sir John Fisher’s Naval Revolution Reconsidered’, 339–48; Tracy, Collective Naval Defence, 183-86.
68 ADM 1/8383/179, ‘Battle and Cruiser Squadrons – Programme’, submitted on 8 July 1914, with Churchill’s minuted approval dated 15 July.
69 Rodger’s introduction to Randolph Cook and N.A.M. Rodger, A Guide to the Naval Records in the National Archives of the UK (London: Institute of Historical Research/National Archives of the UK 2006), 14.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Stephen McLaughlin
Stephen Mclaughlin is a librarian at the San Francisco Public Library and an expert on the Russian and Soviet Navies. His previous publications include The Hybrid Warship with R.D. Layman (Conway 1991) and Russian and Soviet Battleships (Naval Institute Press 2003); he contributed a chapter on the Soviet Navy to On Seas Contested: The Seven Great Navies of the Second World War (Naval Institute Press 2010) and one on the Imperial Russian Navy to To Crown the Waves: The Great Navies of the First World War (Naval Institute Press 2013) as well as a number of articles in Warship annual (Conway) and Warship International on the Russian and Soviet navies. His interest in the development of the Royal Navy’s tactical thinking in the dreadnought era led to an article published in Warship 2010, ‘Equal Speed Charlie London: Jellicoe’s Deployment at Jutland’.