Examples, Conclusions, and Maxims of Modern Naval Tactics (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. WAR VESSELS. I. It, comes within our province to consider only the war vessel in its connection with naval tactics. That is to say, to meet the enemy on the open sea we must oppose him with a fleet at least equal to his own in number, construction, speed, and offensive power. To protect our coasts we must be supplied with proper vessels, which can keep the sea, yet be of sufficiently light draft to enter most of our harbors. They must be protected in their construction against the projectiles of the armored fleet of the enemy, and they must possess weapons of offense and defense of the most commendable pattern. To assist these fleets we need protected vessels of large size, termed cruisers; also a smaller class of the same name, corvettes, and gun. vessels. These should all be of great speed, have batteries of great penetration, and be fitted with automobile torpedoes. They should be of such heavy construction and possess such facility of turning as to be efficient rams against unarmored vessels. Torpedo vessels of different sizes, armed with automobile torpedoes, machine guns, and possessed of great speed, are pre-eminently war vessels, but not of the line of battle. A great diversity of opinion exists as to what kind of a vessel shall be entitled to this place in an engagement, but we think that a list of standard qualifications would be something like the following, suggested by Mr. Campbell: 1st. Great speed and coal-carrying power. 2d. Armor protection; unsinkability. 3d. Quickness in turning. 4th. Ability to keep the sea in all weathers. 5th. Capacity for stowing a large supply of provisions. 6th. A heavy armament of guns of the greatest penetrating power. To these should be added a? 7th. Installation of the automobile...