Military-lndustrial Interaction, 1884–1914 279
new century, the Admiralty even began to ease the tribulations that
had always before beset inventors by paying at least some of the costs
for testing new devices that seemed particularly promising.
One of the first triumphs of this “command technology" was the de
velopment of quick-firing guns. In 1881, when the torpedo-boat
threat was new, the Admiralty defined the characteristics of a quick-
firing gun needed to combat the danger. What the Admiralty wanted
was a gun capable of firing at least twelve times a minute and powerful
enough to blow an approaching torpedo boat out of the water long
before it got within the 600 yards which then represented the effec
tive range for self-propelled torpedoes.^30
By 1886, when Admiral Fisher was at last authorized to turn to pri
vate firms for weapons the arsenal could not supply, two different de
signs already existed which met the Admiralty’s 1881 specification. The
one actually chosen was the work of a Swedish engineer named Nor-
denfeldt. He promptly set up a new company, with retired Admiral Sir
Astley Cooper Key as chairman, to manufacture it. Armstrong simul
taneously developed large-caliber quick-firing guns whose power much
exceeded the specifications of 1881. The largest of these used hydraulic
recoil cylinders to return the gun automatically to firing position after
each discharge. This, together with radically improved breech mecha
nisms and a simple device for sealing the chamber at the moment of
ignition—both borrowed from French artillery designs—made the
Armstrong quick-firing guns of 1887 profoundly revolutionary. All
subsequent artillery, indeed, derives basically from this combination
of features which allowed the gun to fire several times a minute and
still remain almost on target, round after round. The man mainly
responsible for the new recoil system was Joseph Vavasseur. His per
sonal and professional association with Admiral Fisher became so
close that he made Fisher’s son the heir to his fortune, having no chil
dren of his own.^31
Command technology was not entirely new in 1881, of course. As
we saw in chapter 4 sporadic instances of similar relationships between
officials and inventors appeared in the eighteenth century, and per
haps even earlier. Indeed, from the 1860s, as warship design began
to alter rapidly, it became usual for the Admiralty to specify the basic
characteristics a new ship should have—speed, size, armor, and arma-
- Full specifications included: a three-man crew, six-pound projectile, overall
weight of not more than a thousand pounds, etc. See William Laird Clowes, The Royal
Naiy: A History from Earliest Times to the Death of Queen Victoria (London, 1903), 7:48.
- Mackay, Fisher of Kilters tone, p. 252.
