Then I would recommend that the entire prize money be divided among the whole ship's company somewhat on the share system as established in the old days of prize money for capturing valuable merchantmen. Allow a battle efficiency prize to the ship standing one of $10 per share. Give all non-rated men on the ship I share, third-class petty officers 1 shares, second-class petty officers 2 shares, first-class petty officers 2 shares and chief petty officers 3 shares. For the ship standing two, the same system would be followed except the value per share should be $5 and for the ship standing three, the value per share would be $3. In addition, I would recommend that a letter of commendation be given to every officer, commissioned and warrant, attached to a ship to which a prize is warded for the enlisted men. The present system of picking out three or five officers for commendation is positively harmful in that it causes many heart burnings and jealousies, whereas it is frequently utterly impracticable to limit the list of officers contributing to the success of a ship to the three or five allowed. Every officer on a ship has more or less responsibility for the success of a ship, according to his rank and assignment to duty, and should partake in the rewards. To discriminate between them is not always easy and it is recommended that every officer on board be eligible for a letter of commendation, always provided, of course, that the commanding officer approves.

Extra pay should continue to be given to gun pointers who qualify but should also be given to those engineering ratings which are most important in operating engineering, subject to a qualification based on the ships performance in the competition.

This competition would furnish spectacular features in that every person on the ship would be interested and would see approximately how many miles the ship had steamed. Its score would be known immediately upon the completion of the run. And what a visible result would be apparent if a ship had to stop either before or during firing because she ran out of fuel! Or had a breakdown! It would be a most emphatic and visual reminder to all hands that battle efficiency depends both on operating engineering and on gunnery.

This system would also tend to unite the interests of both the deck force and the "black gang" in that both would depend on each other for prize money and would be personally interested in

the others' performance. It is believed that this system would tend to eliminate what is too often the case, friction between the engineer's force and the deck force.

This system also would not tend to create discontent as it would be unnecessary to shut down on quantity of fresh water issued or on electric lights or ventilation, during the rest of the year, as these things would cut no figure in the competition. But constant training to get the most out of a pound of fuel would be required in order to have competent personnel for the competition when it came. And in the last analysis, that is really what is to be sought after. In addition it would require constant attention to the condition of material in order to train the personnel to get the best results. This feature could be stimulated in addition by causing the time when the competition would be held to be unknown to the ships, within a reasonable notice.

This competition would' resemble that of an athlete training for a race. His supreme trial or test would come only occasionally, but for him to make a showing in that test would require his constant training and preparing himself to be in condition for the race when it came.

Many details of such a competition would have to be worked out further than outlined above. The principal features should be those given. It might be desirable to have a primary engineering competition similar to short range target practice for the purpose of giving certain engineering ratings an opportunity to qualify for extra pay as mentioned previously. Such a primary competition could be similar to the one outlined above only restricted to one speed, either full speed or economical speed as desired.

To make this system of competition effective would require that the present engineering competition be abolished entirely and the suggested one substituted. Gunnery competition should be carried out as at present except that the present battle practice (long range gunnery practice) rules should be re-written to conform to the engineering requirements recommended herein. Short range target practice should be restricted to a practice to qualify gun pointers for extra compensation. Prize money for this practice should be eliminated and only awarded to the ship as a whole on its performance in the battle efficiency competition. A similar primary engineering practice might well be held to qualify lead

ing engineering ratings for extra compensation, based on the ship reaching a certain standard of performance.

This suggested method of competition could be worked out in an infinite number of ways to apply it practically to the service. But the essential point is to have for the engineering competition basis, how far a ship can go on a given quantity of fuel, and for the test to be in connection with gunnery exercises. It can be applied to any class of vessel, of any kind of power plant. It makes a spectacular, sporting event which will arouse the interest of every one on the ship, and the results are immediately visible.

It is believed that a competition such as above would overcome the defects of the present system, would stimulate the interest of everyone on board ship, and would present a fair and equitable measure of the efficiency (as opposed to economy) of the engineering performances of all ships. Every man operating a piece of machinery would be personally interested in obtaining efficient results from the machine and as low consumption of power put in, compared to power obtained, as possible.

U. S. NAVAL INSTITUTE, ANNAPOLIS, MD.

SHORT RANGE BATTLE PRACTICE FOR THE
ENGINEERS OF THE NAVY

By COMMANDER H. R. GREENLEE, U. S. Navy

In other papers in this issue of the PROCEEDINGS, there appear discussions of reviving, creating and stimulating interest in engineering matters in the navy, particularly afloat and as affecting both officers and enlisted personnel.

To effect this for officers requires undoubtedly a different system than it does for men. The man has selected his work along engineering lines and wants to do that class of work but he frequently fails in getting the best results through his own personal characteristics, unfortunate assignment to station by the engineer officer, lack of proper training and hence lack of knowledge as to proper operating conditions, and how to make a machine operate economically. He may and probably will be perfectly satisfied if the machine operates without breaking down, but as for efficiency of this operation he has no measure and probably in most cases he will give it little, if any, thought. To improve his point of view, i. e., to make him one of the firm, it is only necessary to measure the efficiency of his work and establish a suitable reward worked out on a competitive basis, affecting not only the individual but affecting the ships as a whole.

The problem of reviving, creating and stimulating interest in engineering among the officers is a different matter. Many officers forget the fact that they, each and every one, must be engineers first, last and all the time. This does not necessarily mean expert electricians or expert turbine operators or designers, but it does mean engineers in the broad terms of the meaning of the word, i. e., “the science and art of directing the great sources of nature to the use and convenience of man." The major division of engineering used by the line officers of the navy are mechanical and electrical engineering, and no officer is fully quali

fied to perform any duty afloat unless he is fully aware of the fact that he must have and then actually obtains a good general knowledge of engineering as it pertains to the ship on which he is serving. It frequently happens that an officer believes that he can follow a naval career "on deck" with no experience with the 'engineers" and thus better fit himself for executive command, i. e., the commander-in-chief of the most important fleet. The fallacy of this is that the individual overlooks the fact that matériel, personnel and operations of ships and fleets go hand in hand, that an engineering education coupled with engineering experience below definitely establishes a habit of accurate, sequential thought, which coupled with a familiarity with matériel matters of the ship or of ships in general, will go farther than is ordinarily believed toward fitting one for executive command.

Officers frequently shun engineering duty afloat for they know that unless they are to become permanent engineers, they must give it up upon reaching the rank of commander and that, if they have had a preponderance of engineering duty, they may fail in being selected for promotion, and that, at any rate, they feel that they are out of touch with deck work and therefore will not be prepared to go as executive officer of a ship or in command of a smaller ship. This, of course, may be true if the officer so elects, but the writer knows of officers who when engineer officer of a dreadnaught spent hours (which otherwise would have been leisure ones) around the bridge when underway, or on deck or discussing "top-side" methods and theories with the Captain, executive officer, gunnery officer and navigator, thus keeping in touch with the ship as a whole and preparing themselves for executive officer duty. It would indeed be unusual in such circumstances if an engineer never found opportunity to give some valuable suggestion to the deck people.

It is hoped that the law restricting the rank of engineer officers of ships to that of lieutenant commander and below will be amended to permit a continuance of this kind of duty by commanders at least.

A plan of requiring an officer to have had a certain definite amount of duty afloat as head of department before being selected for promotion would cure the fear of not being selected. That is, an officer should have a definite amount of duty as gunnery officer or engineer officer, and as first lieutenant or navigator. It