Without a doubt, the British, when designing their all-big-gun ships Dreadnought and Invincible, designed them for long-range combat. But an interesting question arises: what distances did the British then consider large? To answer it, it is necessary to understand how the British fired at the beginning of the century.
Surprisingly, until 1901, almost the entire Royal Navy, and until 1905, a significant part of it, conducted firing practice at a fixed distance of 1000 yards. This is 914.4 meters, or almost 5 (FIVE) cables. Methodically, it looked like this: the gun was loaded, then the desired sight was set to it, after which the gunner had to catch the moment when the ship would be on an even keel and then (not earlier and not later!) Give a shot. They should have shot when three points were combined: the rear sight slot, the front sight and the target. The slightest delay (or, conversely, a premature shot) led to the fact that the projectile flew above the target, or fell into the water in front of it.
It was very difficult to catch the moment of the shot, and among many fleet commanders there was an opinion that it was impossible to train a gunner: “gunners are born, not made”. In any case, with the existing methods of "control" fire, even trained gunners could not guarantee any effective shooting at a distance of more than 5 cables.
It is interesting that optical sights have already appeared in the British navy, but they were not at all in demand on ships. The fact is that with the existing methods of shooting, aiming with the help of optics led to the fact that the target fell into the field of view for a very short time and quickly disappeared from it. The traditional rear sight and front sight were much more convenient.
The organization of artillery firing was primitive to the extreme, if only because they were carried out at the same distance of 1000 yards (only in one source did the author come across the phrase about "shooting at less than 2000 yards", but, generally speaking, 1000 yards also less than 2000 yards). Prepared calculations showed 20-40% of hits.
Surprisingly, this (completely intolerable) position in the Royal Navy was considered the norm. The overwhelming majority of officers and admirals in the Royal Navy did not consider artillery fire to be of any importance at all and often treated them as an inevitable evil. Cases when shells intended for artillery exercises were simply thrown overboard were not so rare. T. Ropp wrote:
"The commanders of the ships considered their most important task to bring their appearance to the ideal … In those years," an elegant look was necessary for promotion "and there was a joke among sailors that the French could always learn about the approach of the British Mediterranean Fleet by the ships to the radiance … The shooting from the cannons was a real disaster for these beautiful ships. When the flagship officers went ashore to avoid participating in the shooting, the ships sought to use up the prescribed amount of ammunition as quickly as possible, causing as little damage to the paint as possible.
Probably the first person who tried to change something in the established practice was the fifty-year-old captain Percy Scott. He improved the machines on which the crews worked out the loading of guns in order to train them to quickly deliver ammunition to the gun and to load it faster, but his most famous invention is the "Scott marker" or "dotter". This device worked like this: one sailor moved the target along a vertically set plate in front of the gun sight. At the same time, a special device was mounted on the barrel of the gun, pushing the pencil forward when the trigger was pressed. As a result, at the moment of the "shot" the pencil put a dot (in English dot, from where, in fact, the name "dotter" came from) opposite the target, and later it was possible to see where the gun was actually aimed at the moment of opening fire.
As a result of the use of these devices, the cruiser "Scylla", commanded by Captain Percy Scott in 1899, demonstrated enchanting accuracy, achieving 80% of hits.
However, despite these, without a doubt, impressive results, the real merit of P. Scott lies elsewhere. Once, when his cruiser was firing in great excitement, he noticed that the gunner was not trying to catch the moment of the shot, but was turning up the vertical aiming of the gun in order to try to keep the target in the sight all the time. And P. Scott immediately adopted this method into service.
In the historical literature, it is customary to give praise to P. Scott for his instruments and perseverance in their implementation in the Navy. But in fact, the key merit of P. Scott is not at all a "dotter", which, of course, was a witty and useful device, but which in itself initially only allowed to achieve better results with the existing, frankly vicious shooting method. The main merit of P. Scott lies in the fact that he invented and implemented in practice the principle of continuous retention of the target in the sight, reorganizing the process of aiming the gun (as far as can be understood, he divided the functions of horizontal and vertical aiming of the gun, appointing two gunners for this). Thus, he created the prerequisites for both the use of optical rangefinders and for shooting at distances significantly exceeding 5 cables.
But in the future, P. Scott for several years was forced to engage not in advancing artillery science, but in popularizing what had already been achieved. Having received under his command the cruiser "Terribble" P. Scott trained his gunners according to his methods. Its brilliant results nevertheless attracted the attention of commanders, as a result of which the ships of the Chinese station began to train according to the method of P. Scott.
Surprisingly, the fact is that the Royal Navy did not consider it necessary to compete in artillery training. And even in 1903, when P. Scott, who at that time became the commander of the Artillery School on the island. Whale, strongly suggested introducing shooting competitions between ships and squadrons, the top management of the fleet refused him this and did nothing of the kind. Fortunately, if it did not permit it, then at least it did not prohibit it, leaving questions of artillery preparation to the discretion of the commanders of the fleets. And it so happened that just in the period of P. Scott's successes, the Mediterranean fleet of Great Britain was commanded by a certain vice admiral (in 1902 - full admiral) named John Arbuthnot Fisher. The next step on the path of artillery progress was to be made by him. Of course, D. Fischer immediately introduced into the fleet entrusted to him and the methods of P. Scott and competitive shooting.
A little remark. As soon as the British fleet (at least with its part, that is, the ships of the Chinese station and the Mediterranean fleet) began to fire using an optical sight, it turned out … that these sights were completely incompetent. Admiral K. Bridge said of them:
“It is impossible to characterize with greater severity the most disgraceful scandal with our useless sights; the sights of the ships of Her Royal Majesty the Centurion were so defective that the ship could not go into battle with them."
But, in addition to introducing P. Scott's novelties, it was D. Fisher who tried to increase the distance of artillery fire and see what would come of it. In 1901, the Mediterranean fleet began to shoot at shields at long distances - according to some sources, up to 25-30 cables.
The result, of course, was disappointing. It turned out that the skills gained by the gunners when shooting at a distance of 5 cables were completely unsuitable for shooting at a distance of 2-3 miles. And as for the fire control system …
British battleships had the following, if one may say so, an MSA. Each 305-mm tower was connected to the conning tower by a communication pipe (not a telephone!), And a dozen 152-mm guns were divided into three groups, each with a communication pipe. The group was commanded by a casemate officer, in his command there were four cannons - but since they were located on both sides, he usually needed to control the firing of only two guns.
A Barr and Stroud range finder was installed at the top of the navigator's cabin, and a negotiation pipe was also laid to it from the conning tower. It was assumed that the range finder would report the distance to the conning tower, and from there this information would be communicated to the tower commanders and casemate officers. Alas, back in 1894 it turned out that it was absolutely impossible to transmit anything through a negotiating pipe during firing - the roar of shots drowned out everything.
Accordingly, the process of bringing the distance to the gunners took place in the traditional, unhurried, we will not be afraid of the word - Victorian style. If the tower commander or casemate officer wanted to know the distance to the enemy, they sent a messenger to the conning tower. There, after listening to the request, they sent the messenger back where he came from, and already sent their messenger to the rangefinder. He recognized the distance and then ran to the tower or casemate to report it to the interested officer.
Of course, there was no centralized fire control. Each tower commander and casemate officer fired completely independently, not paying attention to the others.
The effectiveness of such a fire control system is extremely difficult to underestimate. Of course, one could shoot a thousand yards like that, but with the increase in the shooting distance, this approach showed its complete failure. The experience of firing squadrons of the Mediterranean Fleet suggested to D. Fischer the following:
1) The need for a single caliber. It was almost impossible to correct fire of two or more calibers due to the difficulties in recognizing bursts at the site of the fall of the shells.
2) Fire control should be centralized. This followed from the fact that at a distance of 25-30 cables, neither the tower commander, nor the casemate officers could distinguish the fall of their volleys from the volleys of other guns and, accordingly, could not adjust the fire
Why did D. Fischer come to this, and not P. Scott? Not that P. Scott did not understand that in the future we should expect an increase in the distance of artillery combat much more than 5 cables, but he was simply not given the opportunity to carry out his research. Such things cannot be developed theoretically, without constant verification by practice, and P. Scott asked to provide him for experiments with the armored cruiser "Drake". However, someone at the top considered it overkill and P. Scott was left with nothing. Instead, the Admiralty Council instructed Rear Admirals R. Castance and H. Lambton, who flew their flags on the Venable and Victorios, respectively, to study long-range firing capabilities. Based on the results of the study, they should have given answers to a number of questions, the main ones of which were:
1) Do you need a shooting practice program, or not? (as far as can be understood, the Admiralty took care of this issue only in 1903)
2) Should the guns be centrally controlled, or should individual guidance by gunners and battery officers be retained?
Sadly, the gallant rear admirals failed the assignments they had received. No, they, of course, used up the amount of coal and shells they were supposed to test, but they did not find out anything that D. Fischer would not have learned after the 1901 firing. At the same time, the conclusions of the admirals contradicted each other, and most importantly, they never were able to offer a somewhat viable method of conducting artillery fire at a distance of at least 25-30 cables. The responsible commissions studied the research results and methodological recommendations for shooting for a long time, signed by R. Castance and H. Lambton, and came to the conclusion that they did better on the Venerable. R. Castance's recommendations were offered for execution to the commanders of the Royal Navy. Moreover, it was proposed, because they directly indicated that "alternative systems can be used instead." And since these recommendations were extremely difficult (O. Parks directly points out: “impossible to implement”), no one followed them.
The main merit of D. Fischer when he was in command of the Mediterranean Fleet is that he became convinced in practice of the validity of the “all-big-gun” concept. But he was unable to develop new methods of using artillery for firing at increased distances. In other words, D. Fischer found out WHERE to shoot and how NOT to shoot, but he could not suggest how to do it.
Why didn't D. Fischer complete his venture? Apparently, the problem was that, having organized his famous shooting in 1901, already in 1902 he received a new appointment and became the second sea lord, which he held until the end of 1904. This time in the history of the Royal Navy is called the Age of Fisher”, Because it was then that he carried out his major transformations. Obviously, he simply did not have enough time and opportunities to deal with artillery issues.
However, these opportunities for D. Fischer appeared when he became the first sea lord in October 1904. An instructive cartoon that appeared in the same month in the weekly "Punch". The Admiralty, stylized as a grill bar, has two: John Bull (a humorous collective image of England) as a visitor and "Jackie" Fisher as the chef. The caption under the cartoon reads: "No more Gunnery Hash"
And so it happened in reality: already in February 1905, he took P. Scott to the position of Shooting Practice Inspector (at the same time raising him in rank). And at the same time, another "protégé" of John Arbuthnot Fisher - John Jellicoe - becomes the Chief of Naval Artillery. Unfortunately, the author of this article does not know the surname of the officer who at that time took over the position of Captain of the artillery school, which P. Scott left, but without a doubt, he was an outstanding person and shared the views of D. Fisher and P. Scott. Apparently, for the first time in English history, the main "artillery" positions were occupied by undoubtedly talented people who were ready to work together.
And from that moment on, we can finally talk about the beginning of systematic work to improve the shooting techniques in the Royal Navy. It was in 1905 that a new exam, the so-called "combat shooting", was introduced for the first time in English practice. Its essence is as follows - a combat ship from all barrels and for 5 minutes fires at a large towed target. At the same time, there is also a change of course (unfortunately, O. Parks does not indicate whether the shield towing vessel changed its course, or whether the shooting ship did it). The distance during firing varies from 5,000 to 7,000 yards, i.e. from about 25 to 35 cables. The results were assessed in points awarded for various achievements - shooting accuracy, rate of fire, timely start of shooting, "keeping" the distance. Points could also be removed - for unspent ammunition and other shortcomings.
The results of the first shooting, P. Scott described as "deplorable". However, it could not be otherwise - the Royal Navy in 1905 did not have any firing rules, or sights that met their purpose, or firing control devices. In other words, the British artillerymen simply did not know how to shoot at 25-35 cables.
This is also confirmed by D. Fischer's experimental shooting in 1901, about which O. Parks writes
“… Distances 5,000 - 6,000 yards could become combat distances of the near futureand with proper fire control it is quite possible to get a large percentage of hits at distances of 8,000 yards or more."
So, based on the above, we can safely say that the conventional wisdom that Great Britain began to create the "Dreadnought" under the influence of the experience of the Russian-Japanese war, has no basis. In terms of fire control, the British in 1905 still very little moved from the dead center of pre-war standards - they knew that since they shoot, you cannot shoot, but they have not yet figured out how to shoot.
Both the Dreadnought and the battle cruiser Invincible were designed at a time when the fleet had not yet learned even how to shoot at 25-30 cables, but already realized that it was possible and hoped to master it soon - if some clever heads explain to the fleet, how it should be done, of course. And someday later, with the corresponding progress of artillery science - which the sea devil is not joking about - it may be possible to fight for 40 cables (8,000 yards), or even more.
And therefore it is completely meaningless to ask why the British in the Invincible project did not make an effort to ensure the fire of all eight guns on one side. This is the same as asking why a fourth grade high school student does not solve differential equations. The British still had a huge amount of work to do in order to learn how to shoot at long distances and to learn that for zeroing one should have at least 8 guns on board in order to shoot with four-gun semi-salvoes, reloading the guns while others were shooting. Well, at the time of the design of the Dreadnought, their views looked something like this:
“The results of long-range shooting have shown that if we want to have good results at 6,000 yards (30 kbt - author's note) and more, the cannons must fire slowly and carefully, and aiming is easier when the volley fires from one gun. Consequently, the need to use a large number of guns disappears, and the advantage of several well-aimed guns with a large explosive charge is enormous … … Suppose, to ensure the proper rate of fire, each 12-d (305-mm) gun is aimed at the target within a minute after firing. If you shoot successively from six guns, you can send a projectile of enormous destructive power every 10 seconds."
What kind of sighting four-gun salvoes can we talk about here?
But there is another aspect that is usually overlooked. In military history literature, it has long become a commonplace on which to blame the system of training artillerymen of the Russian Imperial Navy. But, when the top officials of the Royal Navy were just speculating that the ships of the Lady of the Seas would soon be trained to shoot at 5,000 - 6,000 yards, Vice Admiral Rozhestvensky led the Second Pacific Squadron entrusted to his command to Tsushima.
“The first Russian volleys saved the Japanese from pleasant illusions. There was not even a hint of indiscriminate firing in them, on the contrary, for a distance of 9 thousand yards, it was extremely accurate shooting, and in the first few minutes "Mikaza" and "Sikishima" received a number of hits with six-inch shells …"
According to the report of Captain Packingham, a British observer, during the entire Russo-Japanese war, the battleship Asahi, who did not leave the battleship, within fifteen minutes from the beginning of the battle, from 14:10 to 14:25, Mikasa received nineteen hits - five 305-mm and fourteen 152 mm shells. And six more hits were received by other Japanese ships. At the same time, the distance between "Mikasa" and the lead "Prince Suvorov" at the moment of opening fire was at least 38 kbt (about 8,000 yards) and further increased.
Here I would like to note the following. Studying domestic and foreign, translated into Russian, sources on naval history (yes, at least O. Parks), you come across a surprising difference in the approaches to their compilation. While domestic authors consider it a matter of honor to highlight and in no case miss in their studies even the most insignificant negative of the design of ships or the combat training of the fleet, foreign authors either pass over these questions in silence, or write in such a way that it seems that something it is said about the shortcomings, but there is a persistent feeling that all these are trifles - until you begin to analyze the text "with a pencil in hand."
What should a domestic lover of the history of the navy, brought up on the dogma of the curvature of domestic artillerymen during the Russo-Japanese War, feel when seeing such a graph of the level of artillery training given by O. Parks?
Of course, a burning desire to prostrate before the genius of British artillery science. But what impression would have formed if O. Parks had not written in the explanation to the graph a vague "for the same distance", but would have directly indicated that we are talking about shooting from a distance of 5 cables (no other cannot, because in 1897 they simply did not shoot at long distances)? The impression IMMEDIATELY changes to the opposite: it turns out that in the Royal Navy even in 1907, two years after the Russo-Japanese War, someone still managed to train gunners in shooting at 1000 yards ?!
On the rights of unscientific fiction: it would be extremely interesting to know what would have happened if, by a wave of a magic wand, not Rozhdestvensky's ships suddenly appeared in the Tsushima Strait, but a squadron of Her Majesty's ships with British sailors and a commander corresponding to them in speed and armament. And, of course, with its scopes causing a lot of criticism, inability to use them, experience of shooting with 5 cables, shells, mostly stuffed with black powder … But in the best British traditions, polished and sparkling from keel to klotik. The author of this article does not undertake to assert for sure, but, in his personal opinion, the British in Tsushima would have awaited an enchanting defeat.
Thank you for the attention!
P. S. It was assumed that this article will be a continuation of the cycle "Errors of British shipbuilding. Battlecruiser Invincible ", but in the course of writing the author so deviated from the original theme that he decided to place it outside the specified cycle.
