Norm Friedman's new book on the naval weapons of World War I: Worth the price just for his handling of Jutland

By Jeff Williams

Best Defense office
of reviewing books about obscure weapons

Norm Friedman is a highly regarded naval writer
well known among those with an interest in naval warfare past and present. His
previous works such as U.S. Aircraft
Carriers and Naval Firepower are
the gold standard for an in-depth understanding of both naval aviation and
surface gunnery for the major powers in both the First and Second World Wars. The
most interesting feature of Friedman's new book, Naval Weapons of World War One: Guns,
Torpedoes, Mines and ASW Weapons of All Nations -- An Illustrated History,
is not the esoteric details of weapons themselves but rather how at that time
they were understood and employed.

The effort to appreciate and understand the
application of emerging naval technologies in the First World War is in many
ways similar to the same process that goes on in our own time. In this
particular case I will restrict myself to Friedman's observations on the
British and German experience, particularly at Jutland, even though his book
includes coverage on the fast growing U. S. Navy and seven other nations.

Rather than the technical minutiae of naval
guns and the underwater weapons mines, torpedoes, and ASW, I found the impact
of these weapon systems upon tactics and strategy the most interesting aspect
of Friedman's intense research. For instance, the fast developing long-range
torpedo had a significant effect on the thinking of both British and German
naval theoreticians. The 1914 British adage was that "gunnery fills a ship with
air but torpedoes fill it with water." The Royal Navy's tactical response to
this observation was to increase the range and rate of fire of their gunnery in
order to disable an enemy vessel followed by the coup-de-grace of a torpedo attack.

However, to increase rates of fire of the
battleship's main armament certain safety precautions were shuffled aside, such
as keeping the flash doors open rather than having them safely closed. Consequently,
while many commentators like to point out that the deck armor of the destroyed
battlecruisers Indefatigable, Queen Mary, and Invincible was too thin, in actuality their loss had much
more to do with the "tactical factor" of ammunition handling to speed the rate
of fire rather than the thickness of their deck amour. The battlecruiser as a
class likely could never have been built if deck plating was made thick enough
to protect against excellent German AP shells.

German ammunition
handling procedures were safer albeit slower in that flash doors remained
closed and ammunition was stored in brass cases rather than vulnerable silk
bags. This tempered their rate of fire but also considerably lessened the risk
of a catastrophic explosion. Consequently, the hard school of battle forced the
British to successfully re-think their ammunition handling techniques. It also
schooled them on developing improved fire-control procedures to overcome German
maneuvering designed to disrupt fire-control solutions.

The British had
studied and liked the idea of a massed torpedo attack at the culmination point
of a battle and without further evidence assumed the German's did also. While
the Germans might like to have made massed torpedo attacks, they didn't. German
doctrine considered torpedoes as far too expensive and valuable to be
squandered in such a fashion. The famous turn away of the German High Seas
Fleet at Jutland screened by only a few torpedoes was far from being the massed
attack that Admiral Jellicoe, the British Grand Fleet commander, anticipated.

One of the most
surprising revelations Friedman makes concerns the fact that while it was
standard Royal Navy practice to maintain a fleet plot during an engagement, it
was not German practice. According to Friedman what happened at Jutland "was
that the German commander von Scheer, discovered to his surprise that he had no
idea whatever of what was happening -- he maintained no plot and the situation
was far too complicated for anything less. In that sense he was profoundly
defeated and the only important conclusion he drew was that he never wanted to
fight the British fleet again". Von Sheer's self-induced confusion was largely
responsible for allowing Jellicoe to place his fleet across the Germans not
once but three times. Additionally, it seems the primitiveness of the German
tactical doctrine was largely responsible for the failure of von Scheer's
initial scouting plan. The botched job of scouting led directly to von Scheer's
surprise and confusion.

Freidman also
discusses the use of modern mines that were a highly potent weapon. Tactically
laid minefields inhibited the maneuvering of both fleets in the North Sea and
had probably more direct implications on immediate naval operations than any
other single factor other than the submarine. The mine was the ultimate
passive-aggressive weapon, the cost-benefit of which was highly efficient and
remains so to this day. He also reviews the primitive beginnings of ASW and
thoroughly discusses both its limitations and future promise to be fully
revealed in the Second World War.

Norm Friedman's book
is not a page-turner but if you have an interest in naval history and the
interplay of technology, tactics, and strategy, you might enjoy this new
addition to his library of naval literature. In my view, just the coverage of
the British and German experience at Jutland is worth the price of the book.

Jeff Williams spent his working life at IBM and Merrill Lynch,
but always sustained a deep curiosity about military and naval history. His
paramount interest has always been the Royal Navy of the Georgian era but his
fascination with the First World War has led him to extend that interest to the
naval campaigns of that conflict.