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| The French Battleship Hoche, circa 1886 (Courtesy Wikimedia Commons) |
For previous installments, see Parts I, II, III, and IV
The Testing of Jeune École Theory
Aube’s 1886 appointment
as Minister of the Marine signified the political victory of the Jeune École
and its allies over the traditionalists. However, despite the passionate
debates of the early 1880s, neither side could point to experiments in the
operational fleet that proved or disproved Jeune École theories. Aube aimed to
change this.
In February
1886, Aube dispatched several torpedo boats from Atlantic ports through the
Straits of Gibraltar to Toulon in order to test their long-range seaworthiness
during rough winter seas. All the boats arrived safely in Toulon, but some of
the boat Commanding Officers reported their crews endured severe seasickness
and exhaustion at times from being battered by the winter seas. Meal service
and sleep were similarly difficult. Hull vibrations caused by the boats’ engines
further added to the crews’ woes. Several of the Commanding Officers reported
that torpedo boat operations at sea could not be sustained beyond two to three
days of rough weather, after which the crews would require recovery periods in
port. For his part, Aube interpreted the report’s negatives as “problems to be
solved” that did not detract from this proof-of-concept demonstration’s
success.[i]
And yet, there
was no getting around the number of portcalls the boats had to make during their
transit in order to resupply as well as provide their crews some rest. Nor was
there any getting around the Commanding Officers’ recommendations regarding the
maximum practicable duration of a torpedo boat underway period.[ii] This
essentially invalidated the Jeune École oceanic concept of operations for
torpedo boats, raised questions about boat squadrons’ ability to rapidly
concentrate over long distances for coastal defense in difficult weather, and
suggested that even medium sea states rapidly decayed boat crews’ combat
readiness.
Experiments
involving torpedo boat firing performance were similarly disappointing. As
opposed to Charmes’s belief in torpedoes’ near-perfect hit probabilities, test
results indicated that well-aimed Whiteheads fired at a range of 400 yards
would at best hit a moving target only 33% of the time.[iii]
This was a significant performance improvement from the first-generation
Whiteheads and more than justified their combat utility. Nevertheless, it fell
well short of the performance level the Jeune École expected.
During the
summer of 1886, Aube conducted France’s first ever exercise involving its entire
Navy. All of France’s torpedo boats transited to the Mediterranean for a series
of four battle events against the battleship fleet. The first event tasked the
torpedo boats with defending Toulon from bombardment by the battleship line.
The second aimed at evaluating torpedo boats’ abilities to disrupt a battleship
blockade and thereby support port breakouts by commerce raiders. The third looked
at torpedo boats’ abilities to challenge battleships attempting to transit a strait.
The final event examined torpedo boats’ abilities to raid battleships anchored
at a forward operating base.[iv]
Results were
mixed for the Jeune École. The torpedo boats failed to prevent simulated
bombardment of Toulon in the first event, in part due to heavy seas. The port
breakout exercise was more promising. Although the event umpires judged that
the blockade line sunk the light cruiser as it tried to escape, the torpedo
boats were assessed to have reached attack range on battleships 126 times. Twenty-one
of these approaches were evaluated as excellent firing runs, with eight of
these approaches involving torpedo boats penetrating extremely close to
battleships before being detected.[v] This
validated torpedo boats’ disruptive effects on a close blockade and suggested
that given supportive weather conditions, small warships could menace if not deny
enemy attempts at controlling the terminal approaches to a port.
The third and
fourth exercises faired worse for the Jeune École. In event three the battleships
conducted a nighttime straits transit, and although they kept their navigation
lights illuminated they were never approached by the torpedo boats.[vi] Aube
and his staff tried to explain that the results were not representative of
torpedo boats’ potential, as many of the boats were not capable of “autonomous”
operations and suffered from faulty compasses to boot. Those that were
“autonomous-capable,” Aube claimed, experienced no such problems and as such
hinted at what a boat flotilla might achieve if properly outfitted.[vii]
Event four
began with the battleship anchorage location’s disclosure to the torpedo boats.
However, poor weather delayed the torpedo boats’ departure from Toulon for two
days, and even then only twelve of the larger boats along with two cruisers and
a coastal defense ship actually sortied. The seas forced half the torpedo boats
to turn back, and one additional boat suffered an engineering casualty just
prior to the attack. Those that actually arrived at the target anchorage after
the twelve hour transit suffered from crew exhaustion and their squadron
commander doubted that they retained any ability to press an effective attack.[viii] While
there was some debate between Aube’s staff and the Commander in Chief of the
Mediterranean Fleet regarding the actual combat readiness and efficacy of the
boats once they arrived on scene, it was obvious even to Aube’s staff that the
event had not gone well for the boats. Aube’s Chief of Staff was left to argue
that “pride and self-respect” would enable a torpedo boat crew to function
under such arduous conditions.[ix]
Similar
exercises were conducted the next year. In the 1887 events, 32 torpedo boats, 3
light cruisers, and a coastal defense mothership failed to prevent the
Mediterranean battleship squadron from transiting the Balearic Passage. What’s
more, the battleships were judged to have sunk most of the torpedo boats and
their mothership at standoff range. Some torpedo boats failed to transit from
their starting points in time to intercept the battleships despite cueing. The Commander
in Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet observed after these exercises that the
boats were only effective when operating in groups or otherwise supported by
larger warships. Even then, he noted, torpedo boat concealment until the moment
of attack was critical to their success.[x] One
suggested tactic was for torpedo boats to hide behind friendly ships of the
line during a melee until the gunfire smoke became thick enough for a torpedo
boat charge.[xi]
These two years
of experiments confirmed that torpedo boats could provide the battlefleet with
powerful new tools for port defense and other sea denial missions under
specific operational conditions. As one ought to have expected, torpedo boat
effectiveness in a given situation depended heavily on visibility conditions,
sea conditions, required transit distances and times, coordination with larger
warships, coordination with other torpedo boats, and concealment before attack.
The experiments confirmed Grivel’s wisdom from a decade earlier that successful
Guerre de Course and coastal defense
demanded a balanced fleet consisting of both heavy and light warships.
The experiments
had the additional effect of restoring credibility to the traditionalists. The
embarrassing failure of the bateau-cannon
during operational testing also contributed to this, as the gunboat’s small size denied it the necessary
stability for accurate firing.[xii] The
Admiralty argued that Jeune École doctrine failed to account for seakeeping as
demonstrated by the fleet experiments’ documented results. They also noted that
new technologies offered barriers against effective torpedo attack.[xiii]
Across the English Channel, the Royal Navy worked to prove the traditionalists
correct.
The Royal Navy’s Response
The Royal
Navy’s delayed transition to steel meant that its naval gun designs of the
1870s barely improved upon earlier capabilities. Most Royal Navy guns of this
era were iron muzzle-loaders configured for close-in broadsides; they lacked
the accuracy for engagements at longer ranges. Krupp’s all-steel breech-loading
gun designs of the 1870s rendered the Royal Navy’s arsenal obsolete,
particularly after steel guns were paired with shaped grain propellants
offering higher muzzle velocities.[xiv] The
Royal Navy’s delay in adopting steel meant that its capital ships’ sides were
not heavily armored, leaving them especially vulnerable to the impact-fused
Whiteheads.[xv]
Already stung
by its vulnerability to the new weapons, Royal Navy fears were amplified by
Aube’s provocative new ideas and anti-Anglo rhetoric. Around 1885, the Royal
Navy shifted its procurement priorities in response to the Jeune École threat as well as increasing tensions with Russia. In
doing so, it benefited greatly from that fact that quick-firing naval gun
technologies had matured rapidly since the mid 1870s. By the time the Royal
Navy sought its first anti-torpedo boat weapons, light and medium caliber gun
systems available on the open market could be readily trained on a maneuvering
target and sustain up to fifteen rounds a minute out to 2,000 yards, well beyond
the maximum range of a Whitehead. Steel torpedo nets lowered over a warship’s
side into the water offered protection while at anchor or transiting at speeds
under 7 knots. Electric searchlights could deny approaching boats the cover of
night. However, Royal Navy experiments showed that gunsmoke still degraded
guncrews’ visibility, anxious guncrews often fired at shadows cast by
searchlights, the area illuminated by a single searchlight remained limited,
and torpedo nets constrained ship maneuvers as well as denied crucial speed
when trying to intercept commerce raiders.[xvi]
Although the 1887 introduction of high-energy smokeless powder in the Royal
Navy helped address the gunsmoke problem, its ships of the line still needed
increased maneuver and engagement space for torpedo defense.[xvii]
 |
| HMS Rattlesnake, circa 1886 (Courtesy Wikimedia Commons) |
In 1885, the Royal Navy began constructing “torpedo boat catchers” armed with quick-firing guns to defend blockading squadrons against enemy torpedo boats. These warships provided the Royal Navy with its first defense-in-depth against the torpedo boat threat, allowing the fleet to engage or disrupt enemy boats well outside maximum Whitehead range. The 550 ton Rattlesnake-class torpedo boat catchers featured a breech-loading 5” gun, six 3-pound quick-firing guns, and four torpedo tubes. Unfortunately, their top speed of 19.25 knots barely allowed them to keep pace with their prey. Torpedo boat catchers and torpedo boats also shared similar stability and engine vibration issues.[xviii] Nevertheless, torpedo boat catchers and the fleet’s other new ship self-defense technologies of the 1880s presented new risks to torpedo boats that the Jeune École had not accounted for and could not ignore.
 |
| HMS Orlando, circa 1897 (Courtesy Wikimedia Commons) |
The Royal Navy achieved greater immediate success countering the Jeune École light cruiser threat. Seven armored cruisers of the 5,600 ton Orlando class were laid down beginning in 1885. Orlandos were designed to carry large amounts of coal for long-range shipping lane defense missions and could steam up to 18 knots.[xix] These were followed by the two hulls of the 9,150 ton Blake class protected cruisers in 1888. Blakes could achieve speeds in excess of 21 knots and also possessed exceptional coal-carrying capacity.[xx] Forty-two additional cruisers were built under the 1889 Naval Defence Act, including nine 7,300 ton Edgar class protected cruisers designed for long-range trade defense and thirty-three 3,500 ton cruisers of various classes optimized for trade defense closer to the British Isles. This tally of new British cruisers dwarfed the handful of commerce raiders received by the French Navy during the same period.[xxi] Furthermore, the Royal Navy cruisers had greater range, better armament, and generally better speed than their French counterparts.
Tomorrow, the conclusion: were the Jeune École visionaries to emulate or ideologues to deride?
The views expressed herein are solely those of the author
and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not reflect the official
positions of Systems Planning and Analysis, and to the author’s knowledge do
not reflect the policies or positions of the U.S. Department of Defense, any
U.S. armed service, or any other U.S. Government agency.
[i] See 1. Ropp, 175-176; 2. Røksund, 65-67, 77-79. Of note, Røksund argues that Ropp
came to incorrect conclusions regarding the Toulon voyage’s demonstrated results.
Røksund notes that the relevant portions of the French Navy’s archives were not
accessible when Ropp conducted his research, and as such Ropp never saw the
full set of after-action reports from the torpedo boats’ Commanding Officers. Røksund
highlights quotes from these reports that suggest the Commanding Officers
believed their boats’ difficult habitability conditions in rough seas could be
overcome through crew conditioning and the addition of a dedicated navigation
officer. However, Røksund later states that many of the Commanding Officers’
reports also recommended that a torpedo boat operation’s duration needed to be
capped at only a few days in order to avoid burning up crews. This contradicts
the argument that crew conditioning could fully compensate for the habitability
challenges. As such, Røksund shows that Ropp’s conclusions about the voyage’s
demonstrated results were essentialy correct even though Ropp lacked access to the full
reports. Røksund lastly asserts that however positively Aube may have spun the
voyage results in public, the Minister’s private conclusions were far more
restrained and humbling.
[ii] Røksund,
77-79.
[iii] Ropp, 175.
[iv] Ibid, 176.
[v] Ibid, 176-177.
[vi] Ibid, 177.
[vii] Røksund,
70-71.
[viii] See 1. Ropp, 177; 2. Røksund, 71-72. Of note, Ropp attributes the commander’s
assessment summarized in this paragraph to the torpedo squadron’s Commanding
Officer while Røksund attributes it to the Commander in Chief of the
Mediterranean Fleet. Both historians used the same lecture by a French Navy Captain in
1898-1899 as their source. Interested future archival researchers may want to
clarify which commander’s assessment was quoted in the lecture, as the data
point must be viewed as containing greater bias if it came from the Fleet
commander and not the squadron commander. Unless this question is definitively
resolved in future research, my assumption is that the assessment came from the
squadron commander because Røksund later notes that the Fleet commander argued
to Aube’s Chief of Staff that the seas during this exercise were not rough.
[ix] Røksund,
72.
[x] See 1. Ropp, 177-178; 2. Røksund; 72-73, 87. There appears to be some
confusion as to when this exercise actually occurred. Røksund
describes a fifth event in the 1886 summer exercise whose tactical scenario closely
matches the description of the exercise Ropp attributes to 1887. However, Røksund
does not provide sourcing for his discussion of the fifth 1886 event whereas
Ropp provides sourcing for the 1887 date. Ropp also asserts there were only
four events in the 1886 summer exercise. To confound matters further, Røksund
later states that the French Navy did not conduct a major fleet exercise in
1887. Though these differences are minor in the scheme of things, and there may
very well have been two separate exercises with similar tactical scenarios,
future researchers consulting the relevant French Navy archives may want to
resolve the discontinuity nonetheless.
[xi] Sondhaus, 145.
[xii] Ropp, 174.
[xiii] Walser, 22.
[xiv] McNeill, 264-265.
[xv] Sondhaus, 143.
[xvi] Ropp, 137-138, 208.
[xvii] Sondhaus, 156-157.
[xviii] Eric W. Osborne. Destroyers: An Illustrated History of Their
Impact. (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 2005), 29-31.
[xix] Anthony J. Watts. The Royal Navy: An Illustrated History.
(Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1994), 59-60.
[xx] Sondhaus,143-144.
[xxi] Ropp, 208.
