Product Description: To Train the Fleet for War: The U.S. Navy Fleet Problems, 1923–1940, by Professor Albert A. Nofi, examines in detail, making extensive use of the Naval War College archives, each of the U.S. Navy’s twenty-one “fleet problems” conducted between World Wars I and II, elucidating the patterns that emerged, finding a range of enduring lessons, and suggesting their applicability of for future naval warfare.
"In this book, which is based especially on the Naval War College archives, Dr. Nofi, an American military historian, examines in detail each of the U.S. Navy's twenty-one 'fleet problems', at-sea exercises conducted between World Wars I and II, elucidating the patterns that emerged, finding a range of enduring lessons, and suggesting their applicability for future naval warfare."--Publisher's description.
From 1923 to 1940 the U.S. Navy held twenty-one major exercises, known as "Fleet Problems." While only part of annual fleet training, these exercises differed from routine maneuvers and gunnery exercises. All available fleet units were integrated into a single major action. At the conclusion of the exercises, representatives from participating units and staffs would gather for a post-exercise critique, which provided an opportunity for all to see events in their entirety, as well as offering a forum for senior commanders to discuss their perspectives and lessons learned. While historians have not ignored the interwar period, in general their interpretations have cast the interwar navy as little more than a proving ground for a doctrine first articulated by Alfred Thayer Mahan in the late nineteenth century. The literature characterizes the navy as tradition-bound and overly conservative, reluctant to break from Mahan's emphasis on decisive battles fought between lines of battleships. An examination of the documents relating specifically to the fleet problems, as well as reports from fleet commanders-in-chief, the Navy General Board, and articles in professional journals, offer an excellent model that addresses the historical problem of determining what was actually going on in the exercises. The conclusion reached is that the fleet problems, which took the form of sophisticated warfare simulation, provided an empirical means of testing Mahan's historicist-based warfare doctrine against new technology. Naval officers displayed a willingness to adapt or abandon important tenets of Mahanian doctrine in the face of tacit knowledge gained from the exercises. Concepts such as dive-bombing, independent submarine operations, antisubmarine warfare, and amphibious operations were explored in a medium that stressed the thinking of naval officers as how best to fight a naval war with modern weapons. An examination of the fleet problem serves to intervene in the established literature by revealing a different perspective on the interwar navy. While the vision they crafted was imperfect, naval officers demonstrated that they were not all catechismal throwbacks. Through simulation they developed a good, though incomplete, understanding of the new tools of naval warfare and a reasonable strategic scheme for applying them.
Learning War examines the U.S. Navy’s doctrinal development from 1898–1945 and explains why the Navy in that era was so successful as an organization at fostering innovation. A revolutionary study of one of history’s greatest success stories, this book draws profoundly important conclusions that give new insight, not only into how the Navy succeeded in becoming the best naval force in the world, but also into how modern organizations can exploit today’s rapid technological and social changes in their pursuit of success. Trent Hone argues that the Navy created a sophisticated learning system in the early years of the twentieth century that led to repeated innovations in the development of surface warfare tactics and doctrine. The conditions that allowed these innovations to emerge are analyzed through a consideration of the Navy as a complex adaptive system. Learning War is the first major work to apply this complex learning approach to military history. This approach permits a richer understanding of the mechanisms that enable human organizations to evolve, innovate, and learn, and it offers new insights into the history of the United States Navy.
The Pacific Theater in World War II depended on American sea power. This power was refined between 1923 and 1940, when the U.S. Navy held twenty-one major fleet exercises designed to develop strategy and allow officers to enact plans in an operational setting. Prior to 1923, naval officers relied heavily on the theories of Capt. Alfred Thayer Mahan, who argued that sea control was vital to military victory, best attained through use of the battleship. Fleet exercises, however, allowed valuable practice with other military resources and theories. As a direct result of these exercises, the navy incorporated different technologies and updated its own outdated strategies. Although World War II brought unforeseen challenges and the disadvantages of simulation exercises quickly became apparent, fleet "problems" may have opened the door to different ideas that allowed the U.S Navy ultimately to succeed. Testing American Sea Power challenges the conventional wisdom that Mahanian theory held the American Navy in a steel grip. Felker's research and analysis, the first to concentrate on the navy's interwar exercises, will make a valuable contribution to naval history for historians, military professionals, and naval instructors.
"To win in the Pacific during World War II, the U.S. Navy had to transform itself technically, tactically, and strategically. It had to create a fleet capable of the unprecedented feat of fighting and winning far from home, without existing bases, in the face of an enemy with numerous bases fighting in his own waters. Much of the credit for the transformation should go to the war gaming conducted at the U.S. Naval War College. Conversely, as we face further demands for transformation, the inter-war experience at the War College offers valuable guidance as to what works, and why, and how."
