The effect of those lessons showed itself in our ship-building
policy, and has been placed on permanent record in the history
of maritime achievement and of the adaptation of material means
to belligerent ends.
XII
THE SUPPLY AND COMMUNICATIONS OF A FLEET[95]
[Footnote 95: Written in 1902. (Read at the Hong-Kong United Service
Institution.)]
A problem which is not an attractive one, but which has to be
solved, is to arrange the proper method of supplying a fleet
and maintaining its communications. In time of peace as well as
in time of war there is a continuous consumption of the articles
of various kinds used on board ship, viz. naval stores, ordnance
stores, engineers' stores, victualling stores, coal, water, &c.
If we know the quantity of each description of stores that a
ship can carry, and if we estimate the progressive consumption,
we can compute, approximately but accurately enough for practical
purposes, the time at which replenishment would be necessary and
to what amount it should be made up. As a general rule ships
stow about three months' stores and provisions. The amount of
coal and engineers' stores, measured in time, depends on the
proceedings of the ship, and can only be calculated if we know
during what portion of any given period she will be under way.
Of course, this can be only roughly estimated. In peace time we
know nearly exactly what the expenditure of ammunition within a
given length of time--say, a quarter of a year--will be.
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