The Gun and the Torpedo
In none of these features is either of the other weapons likely to overtake the gun. The torpedo relies mainly upon stealth, the ram mainly upon a happy chance for effective use. Both stealth and chance have their place in war; stratagem and readiness, each in place, may contribute much. But the decisive issues of war depend upon the handling of masses with celerity and precision, according to certain general principles of recognized universality. Afloat, such massed force, to be wielded accurately and rapidly, must consist of units not too numerous because of their smallness—as torpedo craft would be—nor too unwieldy because of their size. We may not be able to determine yet, in advance of prolonged experience of war, just what the happy mean may be corresponding in principle to the old seventy-four, but we may be reasonably sure that it will be somewhere in the ranks of the present battle-ships; and that in the range, accuracy and rapidity of their gun-fire—especially when acting in fleets—will be found a protection which the small vessels that rely upon the torpedo or ram alone will not be able to overcome, though they may in rare instances elude.
Concerning the frigates and sloops of our predecessors, their place is now taken, and their duties will be done, by the classes of vessel known generically as cruisers, protected or unprotected. The protection, the defensive element of strength, has reference mainly to the engines, to the motive power. The battery, the offensive factor, tends upon the whole to revert more and more to the development of fire, to utilizing the length of the vessel by multiplying the number of guns and diminishing their individual size; and the tendency is increased by the fact that, as such ships are expected to fight only vessels of their own kind, their probable target is penetrable by light guns. Speed is the great element in the efficiency of cruisers, and whatever the speed in smooth water, a great advantage inures to larger ships in heavy winds and seas. As for “armored” cruisers, of which there are many, they belong rather to the class of battle-ships than of cruisers. Whatever the advantages of the particular ships, the name suggests a regrettable confusion of purpose, and, in practice, a still more regrettable departure from homogeneity.
A. T. Mahan.