Engineering officers not only worked hard at engineering efficiency but also at ways to “beat the competition” without breaking the rules. They became the corporate tax lawyers of their day—it was called “bending the pencil.”5
But the mandate to save fuel restricted innovative exercises and useful steaming—in practices, battleships were usually limited to a speed of 15 knots and other warships to 24 knots: thus, savings and material upkeep were often purchased in another coin and at too high a price, tactical creativity.
The most important of the competitions were the gunnery exercises. The reputations of men and ships were at stake in these contests, and feelings of rivalry were intense; but the activity was inherently pleasing, and a holiday atmosphere attended these occasions. Practices were held in good weather in a southerly clime, the idea being that a crew could learn more from a successful “shoot” than a poor one, although many felt such training limited the quality of naval gunnery under more realistic battle conditions. Still, eccentricities of wind or sea, or a busy operating schedule that precluded preliminary range-taking, might serve to hamper an unlucky vessel and impair her crew’s chance for recognition and promotion.
Short-range gunnery was highly accurate, but as distance increased, precision declined dramatically. The major problem was inability to judge fall of shot accurately. To spotters, most shell splashes appeared to fall “just over the [target] raft”; so they called for minor adjustments in range instead of trying to cross and recross the target systematically. Constant personnel shifts also reduced gunnery efficiency. The annual turnover on most ships was about 85 percent; in one cruiser, for almost a year, “no two successive practices were fired with the same crew.” The vessels were undermanned by about 15 percent in order to keep as many as possible in operation; the result was an admirable versatility, but such specialized endeavors as gunnery suffered from the diffusion of talent. The system of frequent transfers had evolved prior to World War I when the Navy was small and its few ships were dispersed throughout the world; it helped to standardize practices amongst far-flung ships and stations and helped morale, as well, by limiting a sailor’s tour of duty on an undesirable station.6 But the policy was out of place in the large and concentrated fleet of the 1930s:
One of our ships fires a long-range battle practice in the spring and attains the highest score ever made. The officers and men participating are jubilant; the rest of the Navy rejoices because it proves we can shoot. What happens? Three months later probably half the officers and crew of that very efficient vessel are scattered to the four winds.7
For example, in the summer of 1938, the destroyer Simpson led her flotilla in short-range fire, with twenty-two hits in twenty-eight shots; in the spring of 1939, the Simpson was last in her flotilla in a long-range battle practice, scoring not a single hit in forty-five shots. The destroyer Tucker went from the worst gunnery score in her division to the best in the entire flotilla in fourteen months.8
In 1937 and 1938, in the highly successful short-range practices, the battleships averaged 87.7 percent hits; only once in the decade of the thirties did the percentage of hits drop below 80. But at more realistic ranges, the scores fell. In the summer of 1938, heavy cruisers fired 669 rounds of 8-inch at target sleds an average of 5,249 yards away, still reasonably close range; but only sixteen hits (2.4 percent) were scored.9
In July 1938, the results of an excellent cruiser “shoot” were:10
In March 1938, the battleships held a gunnery practice. Arizona suffered from poor spotting and worse luck; a powder charge misfired, causing five casualties. California lost sight of her sled in the haze of blue-gray gunsmoke and ignominiously bombarded the wrong target. Colorado displayed a rapid rate of fire and neat, tightly bunched patterns; four minutes of her fire would have disabled any ship. Idaho also sustained a rapid rate of fire, but her accuracy suffered as a result. Maryland spotted methodically and so had a slow rate of fire; a deflection error further lowered her score. Mississippi was unwilling to shoot while making a turn and had a slow rate of fire. Nevada’s first salvos were extremely wild due to a deflection error, but her gunners retained their poise under pressure and turned in a better-than-average performance despite the bad start. New Mexico straddled the sled with her first salvo, but poor spotting then lowered her score. Oklahoma took too much time spotting and thus had a low volume of fire. Pennsylvania fired rapidly, but poor spotting marred her accuracy. Tennessee was “unsatisfactory” because she had mediocre spotting and a low volume of fire; her third salvo straddled the target, but the next eleven salvos all fell well short. West Virginia shot wildly at times, but maintained a rapid rate of fire and showed some good deflection shooting. The report on the exercise noted: “Improper spotting is the outstanding cause of the majority of poor performances.” Admiral Claude Bloch, commander of Battle Force, penciled on the report the acid comment: “Isn’t it possible to insure more spotting training by demanding attendance of spotters at firings of all other divisions? Or would the ship’s service and the basketball team suffer too much?”11
In combat, it was expected that warships would average about two hits for each hundred rounds fired.
Surface torpedo practices were somewhat artificial, especially after 1921 when Commander William F. Halsey’s destroyers in a clever close-range attack scored twenty-two dummy-warhead torpedo hits on four battleships, which cost over $1½ million to repair. Torpedo firings were done at excessive range versus vessels operating at moderate speeds, and computed scores indicated an improbably high level of accuracy; it was thought that a torpedo salvo from a destroyer would get a hit on a major target (a light cruiser or larger warship) in a ratio of about thirty-two out of seventy chances.12 The Fleet did not know that its torpedoes were defective, a result of peacetime parsimony and the stupid complacency of bureaucrats and technicians in precluding effective testing.
Exercises were important in the development of tactics, shiphandling, and a feel for the chaos of combat. For example, in February 1938, three groups of destroyers learned a lesson when they essayed a coordinated torpedo attack on the battleline. As they approached, the searchlight-simulated fire of the battleships forced the destroyers to take evasive action which resulted in crowding, producing confusion and the need to slow speed to 10 knots to avoid collision. In the attack, one division of ships did not bother to compute a base torpedo course, relying on the division leader’s signals to release their “fish” at the proper time. However, they misread a course signal from the flagship, fired at the wrong moment, and all eight torpedoes passed well ahead of the battleships, some as much as 7,000 yards ahead! One commander seethed: “Steps will . . . be taken to prevent the occurrence of any future incidents of this nature.”13
Most naval officers of the thirties sensed that the shape of their professional lives would be altered by the airplane; yet at the same time, many were repelled by the oversimplified claims of the advocates of air power, who promised “to sink all surface craft like tin cans under a shower of destruction from the skies.” It was understood that the airplane, because of its range, would be used first in major sea battles, and that the advantage in war would be on the side of the fleet that had command of the air, even if only for improved gunnery spotting. However, as the planes lacked speed and sufficient bomb capacity, many of them would be lost and they would be unable to halt the advance of the two battle lines.14 In exercises, when the contending air contingents were expended, the “preliminary round” would be over and “the championship