Page:Heresies of Sea Power (1906).djvu/157

Rh Each ship having fired 48 rounds per gun would have some ammunition left to fight with in the event of an attempted counter attack, even if they did not (as they in all probability would) carry a special extra supply for bombarding. Unless within a hundred miles at the time, no friendly fleet, however powerful, would be of the slightest utility against this attack. The defensive capacity of a fleet is, therefore, limited by its ability to blockade the enemy in his own harbours, or annihilate him on emerging.

For the present it is obvious that if a fleet is able to slip out, it is certainly able, and might certainly attempt, to conduct a long-range bombardment: no sane commander would attempt directly to engage forts on the chance of silencing them; he would be silenced himself first, given any efficiency on the part of the shore-gunners. But if he keeps below the horizon the forts cannot hit him. They may locate him with a balloon, or even see him from high-site forts; but at a distance of some miles a ship is an infinitesimal speck. She averages, say, 400 by 75 feet, less than $1⁄1000$ the target offered by a square mile of dockyard. Be rangefinders never so perfect, the chances of a damaging shell from the ship on to the Yard are infinitely greater than the chance that the ship is hit, even if stationary. By damaging a main dockyard a fleet ensures that, if it be subsequently defeated in a naval battle, its opponents will be unable to repair damages and so be heavily handicapped. Considerations such as these may