of which it is a member. The aggregate gun-power of the
fleet remaining the same, the increase of its numbers, by limiting the
size of the individual ships, tends, up to a certain point, to
increase its offensive power; for war depends largely upon
combination, and facility of combination increases with numbers.
Numbers, therefore, mean increase of offensive power, other things
remaining equal. I do not quote in defence of this position Nelson's
saying, that "numbers only can annihilate," because in his day
experience had determined a certain mean size of working battleship,
and he probably meant merely that preponderant numbers of that type
were necessary; but weight may justly be laid upon the fact that our
forerunners had, under the test of experience, accepted a certain
working mean, and had rejected those above and below that mean, save
for exceptional uses.

The second requisite to be fulfilled in the battleship is known
technically as coal endurance,--ability to steam a certain distance
without recoaling, allowing in the calculation a reasonable margin of
safety, as in all designs. This standard distance should be the
greatest that separates two coaling places, as they exist in the
scheme of fortified coaling ports which every naval nation should
frame for itself. In our own case, such distance is that from Honolulu
to Guam, in the Ladrones,--3,500 miles. The excellent results obtained
from our vessels already in commission, embodying as they do the
tentative experiences of other countries, as well as the reflective
powers of our own designers, make it antecedently probable that 10,000
and 12,000 tons represent the extremes of normal displacement
advantageous for the United States battleship. When this limit is
exceeded, observation of foreign navies goes to show that the numbers
of the fleet will be diminished and its aggregate gun-power not
increased,--that is, ships of 15,000 tons actually have little more
gun-power than those of 10,000. Both results are deviations from the
ideal of the battle-fleet already given. In the United States Navy the
tendency to huge ships needs to be particularly watched, for we have
a tradition in their favor, inherited from the successes of our heavy
frigates in the early years of this century. It must be recalled,
therefore, that those ships were meant to act singly, but that long
experience has shown that for fleet operations a mean of size gives
greater aggregate efficiency,