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(More customer reviews)Commander Felker has provided naval historians with an analysis of what the American Navy was doing between the two world wars. Military personnel will give this a more analytical review than an amateur naval historian such as I. However, from the civilian perspective, this book is extremely illuminating. Naval war games were used to apply new technology, specifically aircraft carriers and submarines. However, these games were usually controlled or supervised by those whose strict adherence to Mahan often allowed little leeway for new ideas and the appropriate applications of the new weapons of war. Many issues were new to me. For instance, even though many of these games were years after World War I, American naval personnel were considering plans for a war against Great Britain. Despite the Germans' success with submarines as weapons for blockade, many American commanders considered them almost irrelevant in modern warfare. Even aircraft carriers were slow to gain acceptance, though their relevance was proved many times in simulation. In retrospect, the dismissal of the marines as a primary amphibious force bordered on the ridiculous. The primary problem for most seemed to be in marrying Mahan's principles to modern weaponry. It was hard to accept that there would be no more Trafalgars, but that in the future wars would be made up of continuous battles. While the simulations and tests did not allow for every subsequent event that followed in World War II, they were invaluable in determining how the new technology worked. In the end, Mahan's principle of defeating the enemy's navy remains intact. The methods changed and no doubt will continue to do so. Naval personnel should find this extremely useful (hopefully Mr. Felker's midshipmen will). However, it is a great read for us civilians as well.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Testing American Sea Power: U.S. Navy Strategic Exercises, 1923-1940 (Williams-Ford Texas A&M University Military History Series)
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.
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