CHAPTER XII

INSPECTOR OF TARGET PRACTICE

Appointment as Inspector of Target Practice - Battle Practice Conditions - Order out of Chaos - Improvement at Last - My Visit to Kiel - The Chief Defect of the German Navy - A Lost Experiment - "Director Firing."

ON the 24th February, 1905, I was appointed "Inspector of Target Practice." By the terms of the original Order in Council the position was described as "Director of Target Practice," the Admiralty desiring to copy what the United States of America had already done in making Captain W. Sims Director of Target Practice.

Captain Sims was a very able Director. He was backed by the United States Naval Department and by the President of the United States, consequently he could do something. But if I had been appointed as Director it would have been a very different thing. I should only have been backed by Sir John Jellicoe, who was then Director of Naval Ordnance : but in name only, for he had little power to do anything and was not a member of the Board of Admiralty. It was useless for me to try to play Captain Sims' part without his power, so I got the name changed from "Director" to "Inspector" of Target Practice.

We have never had a "Director" of Target

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INSPECTOR OF TARGET PRACTICE

Practice, and, much as it is wanted, I do not think we are ever likely to have one until the Admiralty are forced into recognising that gunnery is of importance.

The comment of Mr. Gibson Bowles, M.P., on my appointment was unusual. He remarked that Admiral Sir Percy Scott "had made the gunnery" of the Navy in spite of the Admiralty, and asked what the Admiral's new duties were, for he was a "rather peculiar wild animal to let loose on a tame Board of Admiralty" (Times, 8.3.05). Why Mr. Gibson Bowles called me a "peculiar wild animal" I do not know.

My new duties were to attend as many firing practices as I could, report on them, and offer suggestions for improvements. The first thing I had to do was to carry out experiments for calibrating the gun sights, which the Admiralty had disallowed in 1903. I do not think that they realised the importance of it. The experiments were quite successful. A calibration range was established, and it has been in use ever since.

During 1905 I attended all the firings carried out by the Channel, Atlantic and Mediterranean Fleets, and had ample opportunity of seeing what a terrible state we were in as regards preparedness for war. To my lay readers it must appear a wonderful thing that, although a man-of-war is in reality only a platform to carry about guns, no attention was given to teaching the officers and men how to use the guns ; the whole energy of the Navy was devoted to beautifying the ships.

Sir John Jellicoe, whose appointment as Director of Naval Ordnance coincided with mine as Inspector

191

BATTLE PRACTICE

of Target Practice, had rescued the gun layers' test from the chaos that Lord Selborne's administration had left it in, and in 1905 it was carried out in a fairly uniform manner. But the results were shocking, the Fleet only hitting the target 56 times out of every 100 shots fired, and some ships never hitting the target at all. My late ship, H.M.S. Scylla, that had been top ship of the Navy, came out at the bottom with a score of NO HITS.

The battle practice for this year was deplorable. No rules had been laid down, the Fleet had no efficient sights for the guns, and they had none of the necessary instruments for carrying out firing at any range but a very short one. The consequence was that in my first year as Inspector of Target Practice the practice for battle was a "go as you please." Each Fleet did as it liked. Some used one pattern of target, some another ; some used the target moored, some used it drifting ; some opened fire at one range, some at another. As to organisation, there was none, and as regards methods of using the guns of the ship every gunnery lieutenant of a ship adopted his own particular method, and christened the method with some wonderful name. Of the 68 ships whose battle practice I attended

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INSPECTOR OF TARGET PRACTICE

These various terms meant that all the gunnery lieutenants were trying to do broadside firing without the means to do it, and without any assistance or guidance from the Admiralty. 1905 was a record year for gunnery in one way ; the Director of Naval Ordnance, the Captain of the Gunnery School, and the Inspector of Target Practice were all working harmoniously together to improve naval shooting. This friendly relation had never existed in the Navy before.

The result of this very proper combination was that during the latter part of 1905 I was very busy in getting out new rules, the D.N.O. in getting the necessary material, and the Gunnery School in giving the officers and men the necessary training.

At the end of the year the battle practice return was made out for the first time with the ships in their order of merit, and competition was thus introduced. These circumstances, combined with courts of inquiry on all ships that did badly, bore fruit in the following year, and the gunnery of the Navy began to improve. In 1906 a great many ships of the Fleet had efficient gun sights, and some of the material necessary for carrying out

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IMPROVED RESULTS

battle practice ; they had proper targets to shoot at, and they had rules to guide them in carrying out

This shows that from 1897 to 1900 no improvement was made in shooting. From 1900 to 1903 there was improvement. In 1904 it went back again owing to the unwise action of the Admiralty in increasing the range. In 1905, 1906, and 1907 it advanced rapidly.

the firings. The result was a very great improvement in the battle practice, and the gun layers' test

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INSPECTOR OF TARGET PRACTICE

advanced from a percentage of hits of 51 to a percentage of 71.

The year 1907 showed a still further advance in battle practice. Although the range was considerably increased, the Fleet's average in hitting the target was just double what it was in 1905. In the gun layers' test the improvement was so marked that it was decided to reduce the size of the target for the firing in the following year's test. Many men in 1907 never missed the target at all, and the average of the whole Fleet was 79.1 of hits out of every 100 rounds fired, which is nearly double what it was in 1904. ¹

During the period of this great advance in naval gunnery Sir John Fisher (now Lord Fisher of Kilverstone) was First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, and Sir John Jellicoe (now Viscount Jellicoe of Scapa) was Director of Naval Ordnance.

In 1905 we had a very high appreciation of the German Navy, but our information about it appeared to be very limited, and as we knew nothing of their gunnery I thought I would pay a visit to Kiel. Prince Henry of Prussia, who was then in command of the High Sea Fleet, sent his Flag Commander and Flag Lieutenant to meet me at the station, and I was conducted straight to his schloss, my luggage being dispatched to the hotel. In explanation of this arrangement Prince Henry told me that he had to leave for Darmstadt in an hour, and that he wanted to talk with me before his departure. Our conversation was almost entirely confined to gunnery. He had evidently followed our progress very closely, and was quite depressed

¹ Cf. Appendix I.

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A VISIT TO KIEL

when he referred to his own great difficulties and the impossibility of making a Navy on a short-service principle, for a sailor could not be made in three years. The system provided a reserve of more than the numbers required, but these men, he said, would be no good when called up. The War was to prove the correctness of this opinion. I had intended remaining at Kiel only three days, but Prince Henry asked me to stay another day so as to dine with him on his return. Meanwhile he put at my disposal his Flag Commander and Flag Lieutenant to show me round, but he added that I must not ask to see their range-finder as it was very secret. I did not want to see their range-finder. I had tried it and condemned it. Zeiss, the maker, always brought his inventions to us before taking them to the Germans.

For the next four days I was all day and half the night in the society of German officers who all spoke English fluently and were all connected with naval gunnery. I am quite sure that they were selected officers, and that they decided day by day what questions should be asked me, because I was never asked the same question twice. We were under the impression then that the Germans knew everything about our Navy, and I was consequently much surprised at the simplicity of their queries. Some referred to things that were obsolete in our Navy ; for others they could have found the answers in almost any of our published books and newspapers. In short, I came to the conclusion that they knew very little. Nor, on reflection, could it have been expected to be otherwise, since they had no time to devote to the higher grades of

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INSPECTOR OF TARGET PRACTICE

training in gunnery, all their time being taken up in teaching the recruits the elementary part of a sailor's education. Prince Henry's flagship, the Deutschland, at that time had 60 per cent, of men of under three years' service.

The German ships were in some respects very good, as - in contradistinction to ourselves - the race is quick in adopting new ideas, and their fire control instruments were ahead of ours. The backbone of a Navy is, however, the personnel, and herein they failed. Training recruits in Kiel harbour was like trying to make a sailor on the Serpentine. Professionally their education was bad, but it was bad morally also on account of the example set to the men by their officers. I found out that only a small percentage of the officers were gentlemen, and that they treated the men very badly. They were not sportsmen, they played no games, and their only form of recreation was beer and dissipation. This, no doubt, accounts for their cowardly and brutal conduct during the War, and also for the fact that their fleet, without firing a shot, was driven into British harbours as meekly as a flock of sheep.

After my visit to Kiel, having seen the enormous elevation the Germans were giving their guns, I realised that they contemplated firing at very long range, and that we might expect a large proportion of hits on the deck instead of on the side armour. To test the matter I suggested using an armoured hulk as a target, and a drawing of the ship was made. Admiral Jellicoe, who was at the Admiralty, was keenly interested, and some experiments were carried out to see if as a measure of economy we

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THE CHANNEL FLEET

could use some of the old wrought-iron armour. It was found that this old armour would not keep out the modern shell projectiles, and that we should have to plate the hulk with the hardest armour. Money could not be obtained for that purpose, and the idea was dropped. ¹ The information we should have gained from this experiment we learned at the Battle of Jutland by the destruction of some of our ships. ² After this battle additional deck protection on an extensive scale was provided in the majority of our heavy ships.

In the autumn of 1907 I had to give up the post of Inspector of Target Practice, on being appointed to command the Second Cruiser Squadron attached to the Channel Fleet, which was under the command of Admiral Lord Charles Beresford. At the same time Sir John Jellicoe left the Admiralty to take command of the Atlantic Squadron. During our time in office we not only managed to introduce many reforms in naval gunnery, but tried hard to introduce "director firing." Unfortunately the Director of Naval Ordnance was not a member of the Board of Admiralty, and consequently carried no weight as regards naval gunnery, and this very necessary method of firing was not generally adopted until seven years afterwards, when war proved that the guns in our ships were of no use without it a fact which throws a very heavy responsibility upon the Board of Admiralty, which boycotted its introduction in former years.

¹ The last correspondence I had with the Admiralty about this hulk target was dated 19th February, 1913. In that letter I again strongly advocated the proposal.

² "The Grand Fleet, 1914-1916," by Admiral Viscount Jellicoe, p. 420.

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