[The Navy as a Fighting Machine by Bradley A. Fiske]@TWC D-Link book
The Navy as a Fighting Machine

CHAPTER X
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For the force to reach our shores, not more than two weeks would be needed, even if the fleet stopped at mid-Atlantic islands to lay in fuel.

It is very doubtful if the fact of stopping there would be allowed to be reported, as the commander-in-chief could easily take steps to prevent it.

It is possible that merchant steamers might meet the fleet, and report the fact by radio, but it is not at all certain.

A great proportion of the steamers met would willingly obey an order not to report it, or even to have their radio apparatus deranged; either because of national sympathy, or because the captain was "insulted with a very considerable bribe." The probability, therefore, would be that we should hear of the departure of the fleet from Europe, and then hear nothing more about it until it was met by our scouts.
This reasoning shows that to carry out the plans of strategy, logistics would have to provide plans and means to execute those plans, whereby our existing fleet, plus all the additions which strategy demanded, would be waiting at whatever points on the ocean strategy might indicate, before the coming enemy would reach those points.

In other words, logistics must make and execute such plans that all the fleet which strategy demands will be at the selected points in less than two weeks from the time the enemy leaves the shores of Europe.
Of course, the conditions will not necessarily be such that strategy will demand that all our reserve ships, especially the oldest ships, shall go out to sea with the active fleet, ready to engage in battle.
Maybe some of them will be found to be so slow and equipped with such short-range guns, that they would be an embarrassment to the commander-in-chief, instead of an assistance.


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