Changes to the Navy 1790 - 1918

Question 1

Background to Fisher Reforms

Answer 1

1904-10
- Br began importing more food following the Corn Laws in 1846 that no longer protected farmers from cheap foreign imports
- This meant that Britain were now vulnerable to a naval blockade that could starve them
- Fisher was Second Naval Lord 1902-3 and introduced a no. of reforms

Question 2

What was Fisher’s Selbourne Scheme?

Answer 2

• He wanted naval officers to be trained in common
• They could either train in one of the 3 fields: engineering; navigation; or gunnery
• He wanted this scheme in place for various reasons: he wanted officers to move up the hierarchy based on merit rather than the purchase system; through this, they would rank up through promotion and could get promoted to admiral and command their own ships.

Question 3

What is an example of Fisher bringing in people of technical expertise?

Answer 3

• He had brought in people of technical expertise, e.g gunnery expert John Jellicoe was made the director of naval ordnance
• A gunnery expert from HMS Excellent made an invention of new rangefinders that increased the effective distance of naval gunnery over five miles

Question 4

What did Fisher do when the Gov waned to cut defence spending?

Answer 4

• Sold 90 ships and put 64 in reserve as they were too old and too slow; the crew of these ships were transferred to new ships being built
• Created the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve to augment the RN and now Br had a large reserve to call in on times of war
• Royal Fleet Auxiliary was created to supply the fighting ships with coal and supplies

Question 5

How did Fisher reorganise the fleet?

Answer 5

• E.g the Med fleet was reduced from 18 to 12 and 5 ships near China were recalled to Britain
• All new ships were assigned to the Channel or Atlantic Fleet, this saved money and showed Fishers intention of keeping Germany in check

Question 6

How did Fisher push for the building of Submarines?

Answer 6

• He recommended the use of submarines as they were 25x cheaper to build than battleships
• Fitted with torpedoes, he realised these submarines would be revolutionary.
• Submarines also had the potential to increase Britain’s security.
• These submarines combined the efficiency of a battleship with the speed of a cruiser.

Question 7

Why did Fishers idea of using Submarines not really take off?

Answer 7

• The submarines were not actually deployed properly.
• The Admiral’s Committee on Design was more determined to introduce new battleships such as the HMS Dreadnought.

Question 8

Did the Selbourne Scheme under fisher work?

Answer 8

• This scheme had little success as there was not so much support for it.
• This is because the purchase system and influence of the rich was very prominent and the military

Question 9

How did Fisher Overhaul the Fleet Reserve?

Answer 9

• Ensured ships in reserve were manned by 2/5 of their normal crew size
• This decreased money needed to man these ships
• This was popular as it implemented when the gov wanted to cut spending

Question 10

Fisher pushed for innovation, what was the new HMS Dreadnought?

Answer 10

• A revolutionary type of battleship
• Armed with ten 12 inch guns, which could fire armour piercing rounds up to 18,000 yards
• Had a top speed of 21.6 knots due to the use of steam turbines, making it far quicker than any ship in the world
• Possessed new technology, a new device to calculate gunnery speed and direction, enabling gunnery officers on board to make accurate predictions for deflection shooting
• Made every other warship obsolete in 1906

Question 11

The production of the HMS Dreadnought caused a naval race, give stats of other countries production by 1914?

Answer 11

• Britain 29
• Germany 17
• French 10
• Russia 4
• Austria 3

Question 12

What was the Orion class of super-dreadnought?

Answer 12

• Displaced 22,000 tons and was armed with 13.5inch guns

Question 13

What order in 1912 effectively ended the naval race?

Answer 13

• Order of the production of the Queen Elizabeth class of battleship
• Displaced 27,000 tons and was armed with 15 inch guns
• German defeat against France on land had stopped their production

Question 14

Background to Graham Reforms

Answer 14

• 1832
• The Navy had suffered with a lack of funding - only had a handful of large battleships with 120 or 80 guns, but most had 74 or 60
• Largest number of vessels were frigates which carried 46 guns
• Due to this James Graham (First lord of the admiralty) and he began a systematic programme of refitting existing ships and building new battleships because he believed Britain had been reduced too far

Question 15

What ‘art’ did Graham believe was lost and what did he do about this?

Answer 15

• He believed the art of gunnery had been lost sine Trafalgar
• He issued an order that all crews at sea or in harbour should perform an exercise that was related to gunnery to improve their skills and ensure they would be read for combat
• He set up a permanent school of gunnery and commissioned HMS Excellent based at Portsmouth

Question 16

What was the effect of Graham’s revival of gunnery routines? (Inc. the work of HMS Excellent)

Answer 16

• Captain of HMS Excellent was Sir Thomas Hastings who believed in a simple and standardised system for naval gunnery rather than ships differing in their ways of operating
• Both serving seamen and those in the naval reserve could be transferred to any ship of the line and immediately be effective
• Clear routines of loading and firing a single were encouraged rather than double and trip shooting

Question 17

What was the issue of a low number of vessels after the French wars that faced Graham

Answer 17

• Low no. of vessels meant that there was too many captains and not enough ships for them to serve
• Navy List in 1830 had over 800 names on it
• Captains who did not have a ship to serve were put on half pay and it was possible for captains to move up to the rank of admiral and retire with no experience of going to sea
• Captains who had been waiting for a ship could be superseded by a younger captain

Question 18

How did Graham solve the issue of there being too little ships and too many captains?

Answer 18

• Introduced a regulation that set out a minimum amount of service an officer had to complete in order to move up the ranks
• Before being considered for the rank of commander an officer must have had 2 years experience at sea as a lieutenant
• this ensured a certain amount of professional experience or those becoming commanders and captains

Question 19

What did Graham abolish and why?

Answer 19

• Abolished the Naval Office and Victualling Board and placed these civil departments under control of the navy
• Having them under Gov. control meant that readiness of ships for active service was slow and cumbersome
• Under this system 5 principal officers were in charge of a certain area; surveyor of the navy, accountant general of the navy, storekeeper general of the navy, controller of the victualling and medical director general
• These were overseen by a member of the board of admiralty

Question 20

What were the effects of Graham’s policy of shifting control to the navy rather than the govt.?

Answer 20

• Principal officers worked at the admiralty so communication was quicker
• Personal conversations were no longer done by endless written correspondence and internal bickering was removed so less procrastination
• In Whitehall, Graham extended the control of the RN to the dockyards and victualling yards
• Rank of civil commissioner was abolished and replaced by serving naval officers and an admiral was appointed to oversee the biggest yards at Plymouth and Portsmouth with captains appointed to others
• Having a naval officer of experience in charge of the yards gave rise to much greater efficiency and resupplying ships