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28 MARINE REVIEW AND MARINE RECORD. to dispense with it. A battleship disabled in her battery, but in- tact below the water line, is an ugly problem if her ram and torpedoes are also intact. She is still capable of sinking one or more battleships if desperately and skilfully handled. I repeat, it is a grave mistake to leave these tubes out of our ships, and I earnestly hope the secretary of the navy will intervene and save us from the results of this short-sighted policy. 'I'welve feet be- tween bulkheads will give us ample space to operate a tube on each side, and as we may soon see torpedoes with 1,500 yards range, it behooves us to retrieve, as far as we can, our mistake in this particular. In fig. 6 we see that the area of maximum concentrated gun- fire of a fleet in line is near the center ship. The two flank ships Fig. 6. CONCENTRATED BOW GUN FIRE . co Zs Sa are firing the forward broadside guns just clear of their next in line, and all others are using bow fire only. In fig. 7 the various formations are on lines of bearing two points (22% degrees) apart. The fleet is first supposed to be in line, as in fig. 6, and by pivoting on F to change the line of bearing to the right two points at a time until column is reached, as in fig. 5. 'This diagram is for both batteries, and is very suggestive. For instance, with the starboard battery, a change of two points for line to the second position throws the area of maximum concentrated gun- fire for a to b two points more to c; two points more to d, and in column to e. Whereas with the port battery the positions a, b, c, d and e are relatively close to each other. The pivot or guide ship F should thus be the one on the flank nearest the enemy in order to least disturb gun-fire in changing lines of bearing for tactical purposes. In each of the four quadrants of a circle about Fas a center, the: port battery will alternate with the starboard in being the better battery. These formations are worth study- ing, for it is on gun-fire that modern tactics must be based. Such saying as "gun-fire is everything" and "the best protection against gun-fire is a well-directed fire from your own guns," are funda- mental principles. Few people realize the horrible destructiveness of modern gun-fire. Our fleet at Santiago accomplished what it did with less than 4 per cent. of hits, and at that time our navy had the reputation of having the best gunners in the world. Since then both ordnance and gunnery have been almost revolutionized, so much so that guns and methods good enough for 1898 are an in- vitation today to disastrous and bitter defeat. 'T'o illustrate how gunnery has improved and how terrible must be the hail of pro- jectiles in a modern fleet engagement, let us briefly notice the recent progress made in the British navy in the matter of target practice. Let us take first the 6-in. guns, as shown by the annual prize firing contest for r1got. Each ship steamed at a speed of twelve knots and fired for two minutes with each 6-in. gun, firing one gun at a time, at a target 20 ft. long and 16 ft. high, at a distance of nearly a statute mile. As published in the British press and verified by official reports, in 1901 the average of forty-eight British ships was nearly two hits per gun per minute. 'The best fifteen of the forty- eight made from two to four hits per gun per minute, but the best individual record was a string of eight shots and eight hits in one minute. ee _ The record in the British navy for 6-in. guns for the year 1902, so far as published (and the record is, of course, not yet complete), is as follows: [Nov. 27. Per minute. ; (ee a Percent No. of guns. es of Shots. Hits. Shots. | Hits. | age of hits. 12: |.Ocean......... 163 117 6.79 4.875 71 I? | Crescent: 3. .: . 139 105 5.79 4.375 74 12 | Goliath as 163 71 6.79 2.958 49 19 | -Terrible. .; <:. 109 66 4.54 2.750 60 10 | Blenheim. 84 50 4.20 2.500 59 12 Albion: 2 3. 117 57 4.87 2.875 48 IZ: Cressy eo, 92 52 4.83 2.170 56 Totals... BO an we 867 | 518 In other words, eighty-two 6-in. guns fired 867 projectiles in ivro minutes and made 518 hits, or nearly 60 per cent. The Ocean. averaged neariy five hits a minute. One of her gun cap- tains fired nine shots <nd made nine hits in one minute. This is easily the world's record, as it means less than seven seconds between aimed shots. One gun fired seventeen shots in two min- utes and mede fifteen ints. It will be seen that the percentage of hits does not determine the standing of a ship. It is the number of actual hits per gun per minute. In smaller caliber guns one ship, in 1901, fired 159 shots in one minute from her 4.7-in. guns and made 114 hits or 7.5 shots and 5.7 hits per gun per minute. In larger calibers the Ocean this year made 68 per cent. of hits with her 1I2-in. guns, and one ship in the British navy has a record of eight shots and seven hits with her 12-in. guns in five minutes and thirty seconds. Indeed, the established firing inter- val for British 12-in. guns is about forty-eight seconds. It is very evident that since gun-fire is intended to put out of action the battery and gun's crews of other ships that the gun positions must be well protected against such fire as is now pos- sible, and which we have apparently not reckoned on. Can we afford to let such ships as the Kearsarge and Kentucky remain as they are with such large port openings and with their 5-in. guns in open casemates? Even in the Alabama class, the gun-recoil cylinders are exposed to danger from small projectiles or frag- ments cf shell. Must we not come to the foreign practice of mount- ing our 5-in. and 6-in. and 7-in. guns in closed or isolated casemates, each with its ammunition supply? In our newest ships, the tur- ret mountings are excellent, but we have sacrificed in the smaller guns the question of protection to that of numbers. We have always given our ships heavier batteries than corresponding types abroad, and we have kept pace with the progress in initial veloci- ties, but I am beginning to think that the Germans have pur- sued the safer course in keeping their guns of standard pattern and of smaller calibers and lower muzzle velocities. The British are experiencing great trouble with their guns in the erosion due to the use of cordite, which is a nitro- glycerine powder. Cordite has the advantage over the nitro- cellulose powder which we use, in that the charges are 40 per cent. lighter than ours. This means quicker loading, for the charges weigh less and are shorter, and hence the shell is gotten home more quickly. In the British 6-in. guns the shell can be pushed home by hand. In ours, a hand rammer must be used. The Germans use a nitro-glycerine powder and they have no trouble from erosion. Cur powder gives very much greater veloc- ities than the British or German, but the charges are from 30 to 40 per cent. greater and our gas check pads are not all they should be to stand the pressures. We have recourse, however, to metallic gas checks, and our troubles are no greater than those of other countries in these respects. Just now the navy needs unusually and heavy expenditures for ordnance. Ships have been in con- tinuous service from the pressure of the last five years, and every one of them needs to come to a navy yard and get a complete overhauling as to battery and particularly as to ammunition, as they have on board a ueterogeneous lot of brown powder, smoke- less powder and projectiles collected from various sources, most of it for the war with Spain. It is a pity we cannot meet the issue squarely and withdraw and destroy the whole lot, or at least get it into serviceable shape. We cannot hope to excel in