Current Events

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Current Events

• Warships aid search for Yemeni escapees
• 23 prisoners (including Cole Bombing Inmates)
• Ex-FEMA chief I may tell all about Katrina
• Michael Brown asks White House if they want him
  to stay quiet.
• U2 is the big Grammy winner
• Carey, West, Legend have 3 each
• What is the difference in Album of the Year and
  Record of the Year?

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Sea Power and Maritime Affairs

• Lesson 8 Developments of Naval technology and
  Their Impact on Strategy and Policy, 1865-1890

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Learning Objectives

• Know the status of the U.S. Navy after the Civil
  War.
• Know the principal changes in warship hull
  design, propulsion, and armaments during the
  period 1865-1890.
• Know the principal milestones in the evolution of
  warship armament during the period.
• Know principal naval weapons systems conceived or
  adopted by nations desiring inexpensive methods
  to overcome or neutralize expensive naval
  hardware, such as the capital ship.

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Learning Objectives

• Know the technological responses of the major
  naval powers to counter the threats of low cost
  weapons.
• Know the reasons H.M.S. Warrior marks the
  beginning and end of this period as a major step
  in the evolution of the principal weapons of
  naval might.
• Know congressional attitudes toward the Navy in
  this postwar period. Comprehend the changes in
  naval technology prior to World War I.

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Evolution of Warship Construction

• Construction materials
• Steel hulls replace iron hulls.
• Steel has higher strength and less weight than
  iron.
• Compartmentation.
• Protective decks.
• Armor protection.
• Iron to steel-plated iron to steel.
• Location of armor
• Vulnerable areas get more armor.
• Unable to armor the entire ship due to weight of
  armor.
• Rams

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Battle of Lissa - 1866

• First battle between ironclad fleets.
• Adriatic Sea off Dalmatian coast (present-day
  Croatia).
• Italians attempt amphibious assault of the island
  of Lissa without command of the sea.
• Austrian Fleet takes V formation.
• Breaks the Italian line.
• Ferdinand Maximilian sinks Re dItalia with the
  ram.
• Rams in warship design
• Remain prominent until late into the nineteenth
  century.

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Evolution of Armaments

• Muzzle loaders to breech loaders.
• Safety and rate of fire increases.
• Rifled guns.
• Increased accuracy and ranges.
• Mounting of guns.
• Hydraulic recoil mechanisms.
• Cartridge shells.
• Round and charge are combined.
• Rate of fire increases.
• Greater penetrating power and range.
• Self-propelled torpedo
• Invented by Englishman Robert Whitehead in 1866.

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Ship Propulsion Innovations

• More efficient steam engines developed.
• Increases in speed.
• Longer ranges.
• Coaling stations required at regular intervals
  while transiting overseas.
• Further incentive to acquire overseas colonies.
• Many ships still use sail as alternate means of
  propulsion.
• Hybrids with stacks and sails.

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Low Cost Weapons vs Capital Ships

• Capital ships
• Large ships with heavy guns - core of a battle
  fleet.
• Battleships (Heavily armored).
• Cruisers (Faster but less heavily armored than
  battleships).
• New low cost weapons
• Self-propelled torpedoes launched from torpedo
  boats.
• Mines - Stationary torpedoes to protect
  coastlines and ports.
• Countermeasures against low cost weapons
• Continued advances in compartmentation.
• New ship types
• Torpedo boat destroyer shortened to just
  destroyer used to screen capital ships from
  torpedo attacks.
• Minesweepers used to clear minefields.

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Post-Civil War U.S. Navy

• 1865-1870 -- Decline of the Navy.
• Large reductions in naval appropriations 700 to
  52 ships.
• Isolationism due to the need for
• Reconstruction of the South.
• Continued westward expansion.
• Primary mission Protection of maritime trade
  overseas.
• Naval Doctrine
• Commerce raiding and coastal defense still
  emphasized.
• Alabama Claims -- 1871-2
• International arbitration at Geneva.
• Great Britain pays United States large award.
• Based on Union merchant ships captured by
  Confederate commerce raiders which were built in
  Great Britain.

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Rebirth of the U.S. Navy

• Naval Institute established by naval officers -
  1873.
• Proceedings - professional journal for naval
  personnel.
• Naval funding begins to increase in 1880.
• ABCD ships - construction begins in 1883.
• Steam (Sail used as secondary means of
  propulsion).
• Steel hulls and heavy armor.
• Rifled breech-loading guns.
• Battleships - construction begins in 1889.
• Office of Naval Intelligence established - 1882.
• Naval War College established - 1884.
• Engineering Duty Officers enter the Line -- 1899.
• Increased importance of technical knowledge is
  apparent.

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Naval War College

• Commerce raiding and coastal defense
  Accepted strategies of the U.S. Navy after
  Civil War.
• Strategies seem obsolete to an influential group
  of American naval leaders.
• Commodore Stephen B. Luce
• Establishes Naval War College in 1885 at Newport,
  Rhode Island to
• Apply modern scientific methods to the study and
  raise naval warfare from the empirical stage to
  the dignity of a science.
• Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan is one of the first
  instructors to serve under Luce.

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The Influence of Sea Power Upon History
1660-1783

• Published in 1890 - Mahans first book.
• Based on series of Naval War College lectures.
• Strong arguments for the U.S.
• Maintaining naval strength during peacetime.
• Building a fleet of capital ships.
• Acquiring colonies abroad for secure coaling
  stations.
• Ideas strongly appeals to
• - Industrialists - Merchants
• - Nationalists - Imperialists

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Mahans Strategic Principles

• Geopolitical principles underlying national (and
  maritime) greatness
• Geographic Position
• Physical Conformation
• Extent of Territory
• Size of Population
• Character of the People
• Character of the Government
• Strategic principles "remain as though laid on a
  rock.

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Tactics versus Strategy

• Tactics
• Aspects of operations occurring after the
  beginning of combat.
• Dynamic due to changes in technology of armaments
  and propulsion.
• Strategy
• Should remain constant through periods of
  technological change.

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From time to time the superstructure of tactics
has to be altered or wholly torn down but the
whole foundations of strategy so far remain as
though laid upon rock. A.T. Mahan, The
Influence of Seapower Upon History
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Mahans Strategic Questions

• What is a navys function?
• Answer Command of the seas.
• How should a navy be deployed?
• Answer Battle fleets.
• Where should the coaling stations needed to
  support them be established?
• Answer Near geographic "choke-points.
• What is the value of commerce destruction, and
  should this be a primary or secondary goal of
  naval action?
• Answer It cannot win wars (CSS Alabama) --
  secondary mission.

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Mahans Views

• U.S. needs to build a battleship navy capable of
  defeating enemy fleets.
• Colonies Valuable locations for coaling
  stations.
• Vital to a steam-driven battleship navy.
• Panama Isthmus passage necessary for U.S. naval
  power.
• Will become a critical maritime "choke-point.
• U.S. Navy must be a Two-Ocean" Navy - Atlantic
  and Pacific.
• Need to enlarge the merchant marine.
• Essence of Mahan U.S. needs a Great Navy.
• Mark of and prerequisite for national greatness.
• Designed to fight an enemy in fleet engagements.
• In order to win command of the sea.
• Not designed for commerce raiding (guerre de
  course) or protection.

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Sir Julian CorbettSome Principles of Maritime
Strategy (1911)

• Points of agreement with Mahan
• Command of the sea is of prime importance.
• Commerce raiding is the strategy of the weaker
  power.
• Development of naval strategy related to
  Clausewitz
• Relationship of naval strategy to government
  policy.
• Interdependence of all elements of national
  power.
• Differences from Mahan
• Interdependence of land and sea forces is crucial
  to the success of a national military effort.
• Strategic thinking itself may have to be changed.
• A Navy's main purpose may be sea control,
  combined operations, or commerce war.

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Impact of Mahan

• Validates naval and colonial policies of European
  powers, Russian Empire, and Japan.
• Increasing naval arms race in Europe until World
  War I, especially between Germany and Great
  Britain.
• Building large fleets of capital ships in late
  1800s.
• Writings become required reading of naval
  officers.
• Further colonization of Africa and Asia.
• United States
• Not as quick to accept Mahans teachings as other
  countries.
• President Theodore Roosevelt will use them as the
  foundation of his naval policy in the early
  1900s.

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Discussion
Next time The U.S. Navy and American
Imperialism, 1898-1914