Military-Industrial Interaction, 1884–1914 281
in Manila Bay, under calm conditions, and at Santiago Bay in a
rougher sea, proved embarrassingly inaccurate.^36 Subsequent efforts
to improve aiming methods met with such success, that when the
Japanese defeated and destroyed the Russian navy in Tsushima Straits
(1905), they were able to deliver punishing fire at up to 13,000 yards.
This was about twice the range that had baffled American marksmen
in Manila Bay seven years before.^37
H.M.S. Dreadnought was the Royal Navy’s answer to these devel
opments. Designed for long-range gunnery, it outclassed all existing
warships, thanks to a combination of superior speed and firepower. At
21 knots, the Dreadnought could outstrip all other capital ships by some
two to three knots; and its broadside of ten twelve-inch rifles far ex
ceeded the throw weight attainable by older battleships. Oil fuel and
turbine engines of unprecedented size gave the Dreadnought an im
pressive range on top of its other characteristics. Its comparatively
light armor scarcely mattered, if accurate gunnery at long ranges could
be achieved, since its speed would permit the captain to choose when
and where and at what range to engage an enemy.^38
In 1906, however, the Royal Navy’s ability to hit a moving target
from the deck of a pitching ship that was itself moving at speed and
might be obliged to change course while engaged against a foe was
very much in question. Intense efforts to solve the problem extended
naval guns’ effective range spectacularly, but when war broke out in
1914, most Royal Navy ships were not yet equipped with the im
proved range finders and centralized fire control apparatus which ex
perts had developed. Moreover, British range finders were inferior to
comparable German equipment and the whole system fell short of
making the guns carried by the newer ships effective at anything like
their full range. In 1912, for example, fifteen-inch guns, capable of
lofting a shell 35,000 yards (20 miles), were ordered from Armstrong,
but the Royal Navy’s range finders were inadequate at 16,000 yards.^39
- At Manila Bay, 5,895 shots resulted in only 142 hits; at Santiago, 8,000 shots
achieved only 121 hits, according to official reckoning afterwards. Donald W. Mitchell,
History of the Modern American Navy from 1883 through Pearl Harbor (London, 1947),
pp. 73, 105.
- Parkes, British Battleships, p. 461.
- On the dreadnought revolution in naval architecture see ibid., pp. 466–86; Ar
thur Marder, The Anatomy of British Sea Power: A History of British Naval Policy in the
Pre-Dreadnought Era, 1880–1905 (New York, 1940), pp. 505–43; Arthur Marder, From
Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, vol. I, The Road to War, 1905–1914 (London, 1961), pp.
43–70; Mackay, Fisher of Kilverstone, pp. 293 ff.; Richard Hough, First Sea Lord: An
Authorized Biography of Admiral Lord Fisher (London, 1969), pp. 252 ff.
- Parkes, British Battleships, pp. 560, 592; Peter Padfield, Guns at Sea (New York,
1974), pp. 195–252. Elting E. Morison, Men, Machines and Modern Times (Cambridge,
