Of course, the prime difficulty in devising realistic problems is the fact that in war our whole fleet would be employed together against an enemy fleet; and as the staff cannot supply an enemy fleet, it must either imagine an enemy fleet, divert a small part of our fleet to represent an enemy fleet, or else divide our fleet into two approximately equal parts, one “red,” and one “blue.”

First Scheme.—­The first scheme has its usefulness in working out the actual handling of the fleet as a whole; and considering the purposes of strategy only, is the most important, though, of course, “contacts” with the enemy cannot be simulated.  From the standpoint of fleet tactical drill, and the standpoint of that part of strategy which arranges for handling large tactical situations with success, it is useful, since it provides for the tactical handling of the entire fleet.  This certainly is important; for if the personnel are to be so trained that the actual fleet shall be handled with maximum effectiveness in battle, training in handling that actual fleet must frequently be had; the fleet is a machine, and no machine is complete if any of its parts is lacking.

It may be objected that it is not necessary for the staff at the department to devise such training, because drills of the entire fleet can be devised and carried out by the commander-in-chief; in fact that that is what he is for.  This, of course, is partly true; and it is not the idea of the author that the staff in the department should interfere with any scheme of drills that the commander-in-chief desires to devise and carry out; but it is his idea that the staff should arrange problems to be worked out by the fleet, in which the tactical handling of the fleet should be subordinate to, and carried out for, a strategic purpose.

A very simple drill would be the mere transfer of the fleet to a distant point, when in supposititious danger from an enemy, employing by day and night the scouting and screening operations that such a trip would demand.  Another drill would be the massing of previously separated forces at a given place and time; still another would be the despatching of certain parts of the fleet to certain points at certain times.  The problems need not be quite so simple as these, however; for they can include all the operations of a fleet under its commander-in-chief up to actual contact; the commander-in-chief being given only such information as the approximate position, speed, and course of the enemy at a given time, with orders to intercept him with his whole force; or he may be given information that the enemy has divided his force, that certain parts were at certain places going in certain directions at certain speeds at certain times, and he may be directed to intercept those supposititious parts; that is, to get such parts of his fleet as he may think best to certain places at certain times.