HMS Baham was only launched in October 1914 OTL so she is in the early stages of fitting out. In OTL IIRC Blackett was in 19 on one of the I class battle cruisers, so could be in the frame. Bright, intelligent and willing in OTL to take the initiative and find a better way of dong things!
England Expects that Every Man....
- Thread starter vpsoccer
- Start date
Just waiting for Evan Thomas to ask if they have Navy chaps to interpret what the professor learns... Well, I'm sure that's not a lack which could come back to bite them.
England Expects Ch 4 - 8
CHAPTER 4 Part 8 – England Expects that Every Man....
EIGHT
The following afternoon, Tomkins and Torrance-Smythe showed that both deserved the trust placed in them by their respective Admirals. Tomkins brought a new viewpoint to help put specific descriptions around what Moore was trying to do, and added both context and specific actions for the Signal School to coordinate with that effort.
With needs more carefully defined, by tea time they worked out a division of space in the Signal School's main building ashore that would give Moore's men space enough to operate one large and several small table-top seascapes: Fleet Action Control Tables.
When the four had their scheduled meeting the next morning, Evan Thomas opened with his approval for giving Moore some space for his 'FACTs' and added: “it will take some work, but these may be especially useful when it comes to training Signal Officers in making the signals clear and getting the signal to the intended recipients. There is much to be worked out, but it will be in there and I can justify the space on that basis.”
“Thank you, Hugh. I can add that the allocation will be all we need to carry out our mandate. And if we were wondering, I had a call from Admiral Jellicoe this morning. He warned me that my operation was to be within the umbrella of his staff, and to keep it small. My job will be to brief senior officers on previous engagements, and perhaps develop better responses to those. In that way it will be a sort of internal training system for the Fleet. I have not yet spring the new name on him!
"It seems that Jellicoe heard about the depredations of my Flag Lieutenant, who has been badgering the manning office to assign us a few junior officers other than those on convalescent duties, and casting about for some intelligent and experienced leading signalmen and writers, and P.O.'s to help man our tables. This has been aided by the four men I brought with me from 2BCS. They have been quite helpful in assessing and recommending a few former shipmates of theirs who fit our needs admirably, but current commanding officers are a bit up-in-arms over this so I suspect we will have to take them on short-term loan for the most part.”
There followed a practical discussion about the basic nuts and bolts of getting the operation going quickly, and getting resources. Evan Thomas and Tomkins made it clear that as much as they wanted to help, their own activities were under deadlines and close examination, so additional assistance from them would be limited to that which could be justified under their own mandate.
Smithy had another of his brainwaves: “Really, we have the skills with our own men to do most of what we need in terms of fixing things up. They are mostly signalers who can run wires and telephones and other electical stuff like that. Signal School might be able to assist on more complex bits if really needed....” He raised his eyebrows and looked at Evan Thomas, who nodded. “So, to expedite, we need carpenters. Wood we can order up from the constructors stores – we don't need a lot. Skilled manpower to get anything built is in short supply in the Orkneys! Can you, I hate to suggest it, sir, can you call in a simple favour or two from old shipmates, a few ship captains, to borrow a carpenter or two for a couple of days, each?”
Moore looked surprised. “Can I...? Yes, I suppose I could talk with a few who might see the value in this project.” He nodded thoughtfully as he considered this further.
“I might be able to twist an arm myself,” Evan Thomas added. This was followed by nods all around – they could go on with their own resources, but a few skilled carpenters would boost their progress significantly.
Moore gathered his papers into a pile as he spoke. “So that's our overall course of action, and in the short term we will try to 'borrow' a few carpenters. Hugh, we will circulate details for your information, but it will be up to us now. Thank you for your help thus far.”
"You are quite welcome. In fact this is a function that the Signal School needs to have."
Then Moore smiled and went on. “I have one last item for today. This will be Lieutenant Commander Torrance Smythe's last meeting with us.” Smithy startled and sat sharply upright at this. He had heard nothing of any reassignment. “His time here has been short, and I am happy to announce that his next assignment is to get properly uniformed for tomorrow as Acting Commander Torrance Smythe. Congratulations!”
EIGHT
The following afternoon, Tomkins and Torrance-Smythe showed that both deserved the trust placed in them by their respective Admirals. Tomkins brought a new viewpoint to help put specific descriptions around what Moore was trying to do, and added both context and specific actions for the Signal School to coordinate with that effort.
With needs more carefully defined, by tea time they worked out a division of space in the Signal School's main building ashore that would give Moore's men space enough to operate one large and several small table-top seascapes: Fleet Action Control Tables.
When the four had their scheduled meeting the next morning, Evan Thomas opened with his approval for giving Moore some space for his 'FACTs' and added: “it will take some work, but these may be especially useful when it comes to training Signal Officers in making the signals clear and getting the signal to the intended recipients. There is much to be worked out, but it will be in there and I can justify the space on that basis.”
“Thank you, Hugh. I can add that the allocation will be all we need to carry out our mandate. And if we were wondering, I had a call from Admiral Jellicoe this morning. He warned me that my operation was to be within the umbrella of his staff, and to keep it small. My job will be to brief senior officers on previous engagements, and perhaps develop better responses to those. In that way it will be a sort of internal training system for the Fleet. I have not yet spring the new name on him!
"It seems that Jellicoe heard about the depredations of my Flag Lieutenant, who has been badgering the manning office to assign us a few junior officers other than those on convalescent duties, and casting about for some intelligent and experienced leading signalmen and writers, and P.O.'s to help man our tables. This has been aided by the four men I brought with me from 2BCS. They have been quite helpful in assessing and recommending a few former shipmates of theirs who fit our needs admirably, but current commanding officers are a bit up-in-arms over this so I suspect we will have to take them on short-term loan for the most part.”
There followed a practical discussion about the basic nuts and bolts of getting the operation going quickly, and getting resources. Evan Thomas and Tomkins made it clear that as much as they wanted to help, their own activities were under deadlines and close examination, so additional assistance from them would be limited to that which could be justified under their own mandate.
Smithy had another of his brainwaves: “Really, we have the skills with our own men to do most of what we need in terms of fixing things up. They are mostly signalers who can run wires and telephones and other electical stuff like that. Signal School might be able to assist on more complex bits if really needed....” He raised his eyebrows and looked at Evan Thomas, who nodded. “So, to expedite, we need carpenters. Wood we can order up from the constructors stores – we don't need a lot. Skilled manpower to get anything built is in short supply in the Orkneys! Can you, I hate to suggest it, sir, can you call in a simple favour or two from old shipmates, a few ship captains, to borrow a carpenter or two for a couple of days, each?”
Moore looked surprised. “Can I...? Yes, I suppose I could talk with a few who might see the value in this project.” He nodded thoughtfully as he considered this further.
“I might be able to twist an arm myself,” Evan Thomas added. This was followed by nods all around – they could go on with their own resources, but a few skilled carpenters would boost their progress significantly.
Moore gathered his papers into a pile as he spoke. “So that's our overall course of action, and in the short term we will try to 'borrow' a few carpenters. Hugh, we will circulate details for your information, but it will be up to us now. Thank you for your help thus far.”
"You are quite welcome. In fact this is a function that the Signal School needs to have."
Then Moore smiled and went on. “I have one last item for today. This will be Lieutenant Commander Torrance Smythe's last meeting with us.” Smithy startled and sat sharply upright at this. He had heard nothing of any reassignment. “His time here has been short, and I am happy to announce that his next assignment is to get properly uniformed for tomorrow as Acting Commander Torrance Smythe. Congratulations!”
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England Expects Ch 4 - 9
CHAPTER 4 Part 9 – England Expects that Every Man....
NINE
During the next week the tables were built and accessory features added to them, and rooms were modified and wired for telephone coordination with a central control room. Acting Commander Torrance Smythe and Rear Admiral Moore worked to build a staff and put together two sets of programs to deliver to senior officers of the Grand Fleet and the Signal School.
“Smithy, we've got solid ideas here for a number of different scenarios we can present to commanding officers as practice sessions, so go ahead and work them out, all the details as we discussed. Jellicoe is letting us have several staff officers to work on the historical engagements and near-engagements, people who know every detail of what happened. You can coordinate them, and I will look in from time to time on each little working group. I think we now have enough Lieutenants to put one in each group to take notes, and it will be good for them to be part of those discussions.
“The first phase of each of those will be to do as we are expected by Jellicoe and his senior staff. Build up each of those previous encounters as a plain lecture, broad overview as from the Fleet perspective. I will coach and cajole officers who were there to deliver nice little lectures on each. They can talk about what happened and what they were seeing and thinking. We have room for about 10-12 spectators at most in the big room, so they will have to do several presentations to cover everyone. That will help you fill in knowledge and identify critical bits for the second phase. I will do the first for Dogger Bank, and that will be our opportunity to test all the gear, and how we have the markers moving around the main table, and all that stuff.
“Speaking of how it all operates, I finally have the papers approved through channels for promotion to Petty Officer for Cooper and MacPherson, and back dated to the end of January, bless their bureaucratic hearts. Make a note to bring them in as soon as you can and we'll break the news to them.”
“Well deserved, sir. Their efforts these last few weeks, along with Davies and Jones, are what have gotten us this far. They have ideas, they work hard, and they are good with the new men.”
“Agreed. Now back to lesson-building. The scenarios will give us frameworks to use for actually putting on little shows: signal officers will be able to practice, and we hope commanders can get a feeling for using communications – as well as operating in the fog and coal smoke of war. Those will be tricky: what goes on each table, what the various commanders will be allowed to see, and so on. Signals will be keen to work on that too: commanders will only 'see' what they can actually see from their own bridge, or have been told about by others. So that will be table-top exercises for flotilla and light cruisers as well, I hope.” He closed his eyes and turned his face up toward the overhead. “Damn! I hope all this works, Smithy. You might have to take Hugh up on his offer of a job!”
“Well, sir, I'm confident that we will at least be doing something novel and useful, even if it doesn't turn out quite as we expect. And, by the way, Davies and the master electrician have completed installation of their 'dimming dials' he calls them to operate the lights at the tables – and he's sure it will be useful one way or another. Like I said, the men are keen. I think they relish the thought of putting senior officers through their paces!”
“I'll bet they do!” Moore chuckled aloud. “Very good. I'll make a point to look in on them and their work today, in fact as soon as we are finished here.
“Is there anything else? I understand Commander Tomkins has a team from the Signal School ready to cooperate on everything from their side?”
“Yes, sir. In fact as they get the Signal Officers course fully operating, they will be wanting to use our set up quite regularly. I discussed it with Tomkins. They are so far advanced, with Officers' courses getting under way last week, that we think they may have to bring those officers back at later dates, after we are fully worked up.”
“Good thing. It will make sure there is a visible result from all this work, if the senior officers dig in their heels. There may be those who don't want to participate. But that will be for the future. Right now it must be close to morning stand easy. Let's go find the new POs!”
A few minutes later they found the four key men sitting for their mid-morning stand easy: POs Davies and Jones, and Leading Signalmen Cooper and MacPherson. Before they could make to get up, Moore called out: “Carry on. We're not here to interrupt your stand easy. I just want to congratulate Davies on the new electrical controls – you can show us later. I can also pass the word to all of you,” he smiled as he faced Cooper and MacPherson directly, “that you two are now officially POs – and about time too.”
NINE
During the next week the tables were built and accessory features added to them, and rooms were modified and wired for telephone coordination with a central control room. Acting Commander Torrance Smythe and Rear Admiral Moore worked to build a staff and put together two sets of programs to deliver to senior officers of the Grand Fleet and the Signal School.
“Smithy, we've got solid ideas here for a number of different scenarios we can present to commanding officers as practice sessions, so go ahead and work them out, all the details as we discussed. Jellicoe is letting us have several staff officers to work on the historical engagements and near-engagements, people who know every detail of what happened. You can coordinate them, and I will look in from time to time on each little working group. I think we now have enough Lieutenants to put one in each group to take notes, and it will be good for them to be part of those discussions.
“The first phase of each of those will be to do as we are expected by Jellicoe and his senior staff. Build up each of those previous encounters as a plain lecture, broad overview as from the Fleet perspective. I will coach and cajole officers who were there to deliver nice little lectures on each. They can talk about what happened and what they were seeing and thinking. We have room for about 10-12 spectators at most in the big room, so they will have to do several presentations to cover everyone. That will help you fill in knowledge and identify critical bits for the second phase. I will do the first for Dogger Bank, and that will be our opportunity to test all the gear, and how we have the markers moving around the main table, and all that stuff.
“Speaking of how it all operates, I finally have the papers approved through channels for promotion to Petty Officer for Cooper and MacPherson, and back dated to the end of January, bless their bureaucratic hearts. Make a note to bring them in as soon as you can and we'll break the news to them.”
“Well deserved, sir. Their efforts these last few weeks, along with Davies and Jones, are what have gotten us this far. They have ideas, they work hard, and they are good with the new men.”
“Agreed. Now back to lesson-building. The scenarios will give us frameworks to use for actually putting on little shows: signal officers will be able to practice, and we hope commanders can get a feeling for using communications – as well as operating in the fog and coal smoke of war. Those will be tricky: what goes on each table, what the various commanders will be allowed to see, and so on. Signals will be keen to work on that too: commanders will only 'see' what they can actually see from their own bridge, or have been told about by others. So that will be table-top exercises for flotilla and light cruisers as well, I hope.” He closed his eyes and turned his face up toward the overhead. “Damn! I hope all this works, Smithy. You might have to take Hugh up on his offer of a job!”
“Well, sir, I'm confident that we will at least be doing something novel and useful, even if it doesn't turn out quite as we expect. And, by the way, Davies and the master electrician have completed installation of their 'dimming dials' he calls them to operate the lights at the tables – and he's sure it will be useful one way or another. Like I said, the men are keen. I think they relish the thought of putting senior officers through their paces!”
“I'll bet they do!” Moore chuckled aloud. “Very good. I'll make a point to look in on them and their work today, in fact as soon as we are finished here.
“Is there anything else? I understand Commander Tomkins has a team from the Signal School ready to cooperate on everything from their side?”
“Yes, sir. In fact as they get the Signal Officers course fully operating, they will be wanting to use our set up quite regularly. I discussed it with Tomkins. They are so far advanced, with Officers' courses getting under way last week, that we think they may have to bring those officers back at later dates, after we are fully worked up.”
“Good thing. It will make sure there is a visible result from all this work, if the senior officers dig in their heels. There may be those who don't want to participate. But that will be for the future. Right now it must be close to morning stand easy. Let's go find the new POs!”
A few minutes later they found the four key men sitting for their mid-morning stand easy: POs Davies and Jones, and Leading Signalmen Cooper and MacPherson. Before they could make to get up, Moore called out: “Carry on. We're not here to interrupt your stand easy. I just want to congratulate Davies on the new electrical controls – you can show us later. I can also pass the word to all of you,” he smiled as he faced Cooper and MacPherson directly, “that you two are now officially POs – and about time too.”
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England Expects Ch 4 - 10
CHAPTER 4 Part 10 – England Expects that Every Man....
TEN
“Gordon, you've had FACT set up working for over a month now, and we've had enough iterations to get the Signal School program sorted out, thank you. We'll have Tomkins and Smithy work out a schedule for coming weeks, and get the backlog of course candidates from previous sessions back to do that part of the course.”
“Oh, thank you, Hugh. Without your help, both with resources and with candidates from your Officers Course as testing subjects, we would not be anywhere close to where we are now.” Indeed, the close working relationship between Moore and Evan Thomas was more than matched by that between Tomkins and Torrance-Smythe, and together the four had integrated FACT into the Signal School. “Now we can feel a bit better about working with senior officers on tactical scenarios.”
“I am sure you have been looking forward to that. How many times have you done the Dogger Bank review?” Evan Thomas chuckled, knowing very well how weary Moore had become with describing the action.
“Let's see: Jellicoe and the Vice Admirals, one for each of three battle squadrons, one extra for GF senior staff, one more for those who missed it, two for groups from the Admiralty, and two for the BCF. Call it ten, plus the first two practice runs. I am bloody glad that Tomkins did it for me the rest of that practice week and working out the little operational details. I stood in on a couple of his and quite enjoyed it when he threw in his own observations – it was instructive.
“As for additional use, you could add about eight more sessions when others presented their experience of Heligoland or the pursuit of the Scarborough raiders to various groups. Beatty has been quite receptive. He will do anything that might give him a small advantage the next time out.”
“So you have had a good reaction to using it as a lecture aid, what has Jellicoe said about moving on to using it for tactical sessions?”
“He is impatient, but wants me to do it carefully. It is something new and so he wants it to be attractive and interesting, to be accepted. We worked up a list of officers we believe will be both interested in trying it, and receptive to what they discover. There have been a few volunteers and they will be in first. Nevertheless he instructed me to be in attendance so I can calm any ruffled feathers.
"After we have established its use, more will be invited. As you know we aren't going to really shake anyone up with invented situations, at least not soon. We will just show them what happened in a few cases. First one is Monday.”
The next few weeks were more than a little busy for both Admirals, and Evan Thomas spent a week in London, but by and by they had a few moments for a glass of whisky.
“To The Navy! Tomkins tells me you have a few different kinds of...'games,' I guess you call them for want of a better word, rigged up to operate on the FACT. We are happy to provide signaling services, and it will put some interesting experience into our courses, but I do hope that you can keep it realistic.”
“Yes, Hugh, we will stick to things that happen to a ship at sea. Essentially there are three kinds of games. And that's not counting fleet handling drills – maneuvers such as Jellicoe used to run. We make use of the fact that we have the three secondary rooms with smaller tables and that we can use to represent the bridge of a ship. The main room might be a bridge, perhaps of the flagship, but might equally be kept as a master control plot of the entire action.”
“So Gordon, the other three tables will be used as individual ships in some other scenarios?”
“Quite often, yes. I've become quite a lecturer these last few months, so please bear with me as I ramble on a bit.” Moore laughed, “there's more in the bottle than the steward put into the decanter, so help yourself! Let me describe the types of scenario, or game, we run.
“First, three bridges as private ships or as unit commanders, but looking to coordinate actions. These may be scouts and screen, or whatever combination we put together. We have a library of sample scenarios. They will learn to send clear and efficient messages to each other to get this done. It's not just signalmen who need practice in that, commanders do also. We will of course not be doing this in a clear blue sky with the wind from the best direction!
“Second, three ships, while maintaining a master plot. They will see things, make decisions, and so on. We may have one of them or the main table as 'flag' but in any case, these will be to give experience in situations resembling those which others have experienced at sea. These will not be made up, although we will disguise the ship names and location to protect the surprises, if any. I am really looking forward to these, they are what I thought of when Jellicoe showed me his table.
“Third, like the second but we set up a tricky scenario for a ship or commander, and let all three secondary tables work it simultaneously while we keep a master plot. Then we can review it together afterward. We have a small number of these from actual experience, but enough.
“As you know we can vary lighting conditions of the table they are looking at, in addition to what is displayed on the various tables – all for ambiance. By controlling that we put them into realistic scenarios, we hope. We have barrier markers for smoke, mist, squalls, and so on, but also for just nothing – when visibility is unknown and you don't know that you can't see into the fog or darkness. A variety of things – maybe I shouldn't tell you in case you come to play some day.” He smiled.
“Sounds like you may embarrass a few officers in there Gordon. How will that go over?”
“All in all, it may be a bit of rough training some times, but that is where we learn. Better a red face than a 12-inch shell. When we can show them how others did in the scenario, without names of course, we believe tempers will be assuaged. We have put a lot of thought, and whisky, into this. And I credit Smithy for a lot of the more creative ideas. I hate to think what he would do to the Huns if we ever let him have at them!”
A month later, word was out – it was 'fun' in a tense, professional sort of way, but you better be 'in all respects ready for sea.'
Three Captains had been 'suggested' by Jellicoe to work through the basic scenario of HMS Orion of 2BS in the pursuit following the Scarborough raid. To disguise the scenario they thought they were in a column of armoured cruisers pursuing Austro-Hungarians, but all were in the position of HMS Orion, with the vantage point of Rear Admiral Arbuthnot and Captain Dreyer. The latter was actually attending with Admiral Moore and observing from the control room.
When they caught sight of the enemy in the dark and poor visibility, two of the Captains signaled for permission to open fire, the third did nothing. For all three, the enemy vanished as quickly and completely as he had appeared. The post-mortem led to some raised voices and hurt feelings, eased only by the personal intervention of Admiral Moore and his introduction of Captain Dreyer. All calmed suddenly when the Commander in Chief appeared.
“Gentlemen!” opened Admiral Jellicoe. “I am happy to see that you all take this seriously. I know I do, and I have been learning here at FACTs just like everyone else. I happen to know that the scenario you just took part in was experienced in the North Sea by Captain Dreyer, and he can discuss it with you himself.
“Let me add: if we can have these little insights here, we will be better prepared to face the enemy when the time comes. As Admiral Moore said to me one day, better a red face here than a red fireball in your magazine. So thank you for your hard work, and please carry on. I am here to see Admiral Moore and must tear him away from you at this moment.”
Discussion quieted as they left, the Admirals adjourning to the small room that Moore shared with Smithy as their office. “Welcome to my cubby, sir.”
“Thank you, Gordon. I will be brief, we can discuss this matter in detail over the next few weeks if and as required. Written orders will follow, but I am here to tell you that you have three weeks to finish up with the stellar work you have done here and hand over to Commander Torrance-Smythe. He will be attached to the Signal School under Evan Thomas. With ships of the QE class now working up and joining the fleet, you will take command of the 5th Battle Squadron. Congratulations.”
TEN
“Gordon, you've had FACT set up working for over a month now, and we've had enough iterations to get the Signal School program sorted out, thank you. We'll have Tomkins and Smithy work out a schedule for coming weeks, and get the backlog of course candidates from previous sessions back to do that part of the course.”
“Oh, thank you, Hugh. Without your help, both with resources and with candidates from your Officers Course as testing subjects, we would not be anywhere close to where we are now.” Indeed, the close working relationship between Moore and Evan Thomas was more than matched by that between Tomkins and Torrance-Smythe, and together the four had integrated FACT into the Signal School. “Now we can feel a bit better about working with senior officers on tactical scenarios.”
“I am sure you have been looking forward to that. How many times have you done the Dogger Bank review?” Evan Thomas chuckled, knowing very well how weary Moore had become with describing the action.
“Let's see: Jellicoe and the Vice Admirals, one for each of three battle squadrons, one extra for GF senior staff, one more for those who missed it, two for groups from the Admiralty, and two for the BCF. Call it ten, plus the first two practice runs. I am bloody glad that Tomkins did it for me the rest of that practice week and working out the little operational details. I stood in on a couple of his and quite enjoyed it when he threw in his own observations – it was instructive.
“As for additional use, you could add about eight more sessions when others presented their experience of Heligoland or the pursuit of the Scarborough raiders to various groups. Beatty has been quite receptive. He will do anything that might give him a small advantage the next time out.”
“So you have had a good reaction to using it as a lecture aid, what has Jellicoe said about moving on to using it for tactical sessions?”
“He is impatient, but wants me to do it carefully. It is something new and so he wants it to be attractive and interesting, to be accepted. We worked up a list of officers we believe will be both interested in trying it, and receptive to what they discover. There have been a few volunteers and they will be in first. Nevertheless he instructed me to be in attendance so I can calm any ruffled feathers.
"After we have established its use, more will be invited. As you know we aren't going to really shake anyone up with invented situations, at least not soon. We will just show them what happened in a few cases. First one is Monday.”
The next few weeks were more than a little busy for both Admirals, and Evan Thomas spent a week in London, but by and by they had a few moments for a glass of whisky.
“To The Navy! Tomkins tells me you have a few different kinds of...'games,' I guess you call them for want of a better word, rigged up to operate on the FACT. We are happy to provide signaling services, and it will put some interesting experience into our courses, but I do hope that you can keep it realistic.”
“Yes, Hugh, we will stick to things that happen to a ship at sea. Essentially there are three kinds of games. And that's not counting fleet handling drills – maneuvers such as Jellicoe used to run. We make use of the fact that we have the three secondary rooms with smaller tables and that we can use to represent the bridge of a ship. The main room might be a bridge, perhaps of the flagship, but might equally be kept as a master control plot of the entire action.”
“So Gordon, the other three tables will be used as individual ships in some other scenarios?”
“Quite often, yes. I've become quite a lecturer these last few months, so please bear with me as I ramble on a bit.” Moore laughed, “there's more in the bottle than the steward put into the decanter, so help yourself! Let me describe the types of scenario, or game, we run.
“First, three bridges as private ships or as unit commanders, but looking to coordinate actions. These may be scouts and screen, or whatever combination we put together. We have a library of sample scenarios. They will learn to send clear and efficient messages to each other to get this done. It's not just signalmen who need practice in that, commanders do also. We will of course not be doing this in a clear blue sky with the wind from the best direction!
“Second, three ships, while maintaining a master plot. They will see things, make decisions, and so on. We may have one of them or the main table as 'flag' but in any case, these will be to give experience in situations resembling those which others have experienced at sea. These will not be made up, although we will disguise the ship names and location to protect the surprises, if any. I am really looking forward to these, they are what I thought of when Jellicoe showed me his table.
“Third, like the second but we set up a tricky scenario for a ship or commander, and let all three secondary tables work it simultaneously while we keep a master plot. Then we can review it together afterward. We have a small number of these from actual experience, but enough.
“As you know we can vary lighting conditions of the table they are looking at, in addition to what is displayed on the various tables – all for ambiance. By controlling that we put them into realistic scenarios, we hope. We have barrier markers for smoke, mist, squalls, and so on, but also for just nothing – when visibility is unknown and you don't know that you can't see into the fog or darkness. A variety of things – maybe I shouldn't tell you in case you come to play some day.” He smiled.
“Sounds like you may embarrass a few officers in there Gordon. How will that go over?”
“All in all, it may be a bit of rough training some times, but that is where we learn. Better a red face than a 12-inch shell. When we can show them how others did in the scenario, without names of course, we believe tempers will be assuaged. We have put a lot of thought, and whisky, into this. And I credit Smithy for a lot of the more creative ideas. I hate to think what he would do to the Huns if we ever let him have at them!”
A month later, word was out – it was 'fun' in a tense, professional sort of way, but you better be 'in all respects ready for sea.'
Three Captains had been 'suggested' by Jellicoe to work through the basic scenario of HMS Orion of 2BS in the pursuit following the Scarborough raid. To disguise the scenario they thought they were in a column of armoured cruisers pursuing Austro-Hungarians, but all were in the position of HMS Orion, with the vantage point of Rear Admiral Arbuthnot and Captain Dreyer. The latter was actually attending with Admiral Moore and observing from the control room.
When they caught sight of the enemy in the dark and poor visibility, two of the Captains signaled for permission to open fire, the third did nothing. For all three, the enemy vanished as quickly and completely as he had appeared. The post-mortem led to some raised voices and hurt feelings, eased only by the personal intervention of Admiral Moore and his introduction of Captain Dreyer. All calmed suddenly when the Commander in Chief appeared.
“Gentlemen!” opened Admiral Jellicoe. “I am happy to see that you all take this seriously. I know I do, and I have been learning here at FACTs just like everyone else. I happen to know that the scenario you just took part in was experienced in the North Sea by Captain Dreyer, and he can discuss it with you himself.
“Let me add: if we can have these little insights here, we will be better prepared to face the enemy when the time comes. As Admiral Moore said to me one day, better a red face here than a red fireball in your magazine. So thank you for your hard work, and please carry on. I am here to see Admiral Moore and must tear him away from you at this moment.”
Discussion quieted as they left, the Admirals adjourning to the small room that Moore shared with Smithy as their office. “Welcome to my cubby, sir.”
“Thank you, Gordon. I will be brief, we can discuss this matter in detail over the next few weeks if and as required. Written orders will follow, but I am here to tell you that you have three weeks to finish up with the stellar work you have done here and hand over to Commander Torrance-Smythe. He will be attached to the Signal School under Evan Thomas. With ships of the QE class now working up and joining the fleet, you will take command of the 5th Battle Squadron. Congratulations.”
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Well if nothing else no ship is going to signal for permission to open fire on the enemy in Moore 5th Battle Squadron...which will be bad news for the Germans if Jutland plays out roughly(minus the exploding battlecruisers) as otl
To open fire you have to see where the enemy is and know where your friends are! In the fog of war that is not as easy as it seems. Recognition signals and ship recognition will be important. If that has been practiced on the tables then definitely the GF will be much better prepared ITTL than it was OTL.
OTL didn't Barham carry Even-Thomas's flag? With the changes ITTL Moore could certainly pick Warspite instead but I imagine there is a reason the former was selected in the first place and those reasons may still weight Moore's selection ITTL.
Thank you all for your continued interest. Next chapter will start in a few days. Unknown number of sections.
After that I will be off-line for a while, catching up on life.
After that I will be off-line for a while, catching up on life.
- To save you all some further head scratching (unless you have lice!) HMS Barham was built with flag facilities.
- Moore was pioneering all the way with the FACT project and we really don't know how much he was able to make it "real" in the way that we have today with VR and so on. They made it up as they went along. That they had lights and sound between rooms, and a staff of matelots to move counters around to maintain plots in each of the rooms, was whizz-bang enough for the day.
- Note back a bit where E-T recognized that they will have to bring some officers back to catch up on the Officers Signals Course. So maybe they will have ongoing upgrades? Who knows? Not me! But he and the free-thinking Smithy are now running FACT.
- I think a lot will depend on whether they can get LC squadron commanders and Flotilla commanders in for relevant experience. They have to meet School needs, and if not bogged down with that can do maybe 1 scenario per day (real time takes time!).
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Has it been revealed what damage the German ships suffered at TTL Dogger Bank?