Page:The Development of Navies During the Last Half-Century.djvu/126

 showed a most inefficient control of the fire on the part of the officers, and it is a matter which should receive the greatest attention in all navies. Much is written about the fire discipline of armies in the field, but no less important is this supervision in a naval action.

One thing is wanting to complete the valuable experience gained on that day and make it applicable to the present time. No locomotive torpedoes were used, this arm as a naval weapon not having been then introduced. Whether, after the line was broken and the ships were all mixed up together, it would not have been as dangerous to friend as to foe may well be questioned; but small vessels specially armed in this way would have had good opportunities of gliding in under cover of the smoke and dealing deadly blows to partially disabled ships. Time was everything to Tegethoff, and hence it is difficult to say what effect torpedoes would have had upon his tactics. We can only deal with matters as they were; and we have sufficient material for reflection both in the strategy preceding the action and the manner in which two modern fleets first met in war.

While we were thus developing side by side the broadside and turret systems of mounting guns behind armour our neighbours the French had proceeded on somewhat different lines. At first, like ourselves, they had adopted the broadside system, and then the central battery, but with the latter and above it they usually placed a few guns en barbette on each side. This