Admiral Sir Percy Moreton Scott, 1st Baronet, (10 July 1853 – 18 October 1924) was a British Royal Navy officer and a pioneer in modern naval gunnery. During his career he proved to be an engineer and problem solver of some considerable foresight, ingenuity and tenacity. He did not, however, endear himself to the Navy establishment for his regular outspoken criticism of the Navy's conservatism and resistance to change and this undoubtedly slowed the acceptance of his most important ideas, notably the introduction of directed firing. In spite of this, his vision proved correct most of the time and he rose to the rank of admiral and amongst other honours was made baronet, a hereditary title.
Early years Scott was educated at Eastman's Royal Naval Academy, Southsea, and entered the navy as a cadet in 1866, at the age of thirteen, and in 1868 received a post on HMS Forte, a 50-gun frigate. He served in the Third Anglo-Ashanti War and was based at Cape Coast Castle. He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in 1875.
In 1878 he attended a course at HMS Excellent to qualify as a gunnery lieutenant. It was during this period that, having created a serviceable running track on Whale Island (which had been largely created when dumping the mud spoil from the excavation of the basins which were to form Portsmouth dockyards), he put forward the suggestion that Whale Island should be levelled and drained to allow the construction of a new gunnery establishment to replace the 80-year-old ship which at the time was rotting and needed replacement. The proposal was rejected as ridiculous.Scott (1919), pp. 34-35 Having completed the course, there followed a year's tour of duty as an instructor after which Scott was posted as gunnery lieutenant on part of a squadron responsible for training officers and men in the use of masts and sails.Scott (1919), p. 35 In October 1880 the ship set off for a world cruise but having visited South America, was ordered from the Falkland Islands, on the outbreak of the First Boer War to sail to South Africa, arriving in mid-February. They were not involved in the hostilities and by mid-April had sailed once more for Australia.Scott (1919), pp. 37-39
It was during this cruise Scott devised an electrical indicator system to communicate target ranges from the lookout position on the masthead to the gun deck. Fifteen months later he received a commendation from the Admiralty for his work but ruefully pointed out in his autobiography that on returning to England he discovered his idea had been "... pirated and patented by someone else ... the Admiralty did not supply it to the Service until twenty-five years afterwards."Scott (1919), p. 41
Returning from Australia via South Africa Scott found himself having to deal with a fire on board when moored in Simon's Bay. From this he learned that the "smoke cap" supplied to wear in smoke-filled environments was of little use and the alternative, wearing a diving suit, was little better because of the weight of the helmet when on dry land. Scott set his ingenuity to the problem and devised a light metal helmet and short coat with waist belt and wrist bands to prevent smoke contaminating the wearer's breathing air which was piped in. This proved effective and once more Scott wrote to the Admiralty with his design and once more it was rejected (on the basis that the Loeb smoke-cap was satisfactory). It was thirty years later that the Admiralty changed their minds.Scott (1919), pp. 41-45
On their journey home the Inconstant was ordered from Gibraltar to Alexandria. Scott was present at the 1882 British naval bombardment of Egyptian forts at Alexandria, and while witnessing how inaccurate the British gunners were,Scott (1919), p. 48 began to form his own ideas on the nature of naval gunfire. He was commended once more for his ingenious work in dismounting enemy heavy guns from the captured forts for use by the army.Scott (1919), pp. 51-55
In 1883 Scott was posted to the gunnery school at . After six months he was transferred to HMS Excellent once more.Scott (1919), p. 58 Here he once more took up his idea of creating the gunnery school on Whale Island. In spite of the unpromising prospects, he created a detailed plan which he submitted to the commander of Excellent Captain John Fisher. After careful scrutiny Fisher put the plan forward to the Admiralty with his recommendation. The plan was accepted and work started immediately.Scott (1919), pp. 58-59
In 1886 Scott was promoted to the rank of commander and joined HMS Edinburgh as second in command. Scott attempted to implement some of his ideas for gunnery improvement by holding regular firing practices, but was forced to direct most of his crew's energies towards the traditional naval task of cleaning the ship:
During Edinburgh's time with the Mediterranean Fleet, Scott noted the difficulties experienced by the flagship in making signals to the fleet (rather than to individual ships). He developed an arrangement with a masthead light which could be seen in all directions and which because of its height was not lost in the confusion of the other lights within the flagship's superstructure. The flagship adopted the design but the Admiralty then introduced a changed design for general issue which failed to work. Only after several years of "trial and waste of money" was Scott's original design adopted.Scott (1919), pp. 61-62
In early 1890 Scott left Edinburgh to return to HMS Excellent, the gunnery school. He found that construction was still in progress and his original plans had been "much departed from" and that things were "generally in rather a confused state". Scott proceeded to sort things out with his characteristic energy but there still remained the problem that little provision had been made to deal with road-making, draining and levelling. He judged that taking this issue up with the Admiralty would result in no early resolution so came up with a novel solution: he raised money by subscription to construct a cricket pitch in the centre of Whale Island, well drained and professionally constructed. After its completion, their Lordships, the Commissioners of the Admiralty, were making a visit and were shown the new pitch. However, to gain access they had to make their way across the approaches to the pitch ankle-deep in mud. Orders were promptly issued at the highest level for the island to be levelled and drained!Scott (1919), pp. 67-68
During his term at Excellent Scott was appointed to sit on a three-man committee to revise and standardise the regulations respecting the navy's uniforms. At the time navy officers "were wearing practically what they liked" and the Prince of Wales had called attention to this.Scott (1919), pp. 69-70
In his three years at Excellent Scott had made great strides in "perfecting Whale Island as a barracks" but "its efficiency as a School of Gunnery advanced but slowly". This was because although there seemed to be plenty of money for bricks and mortar, little was forthcoming for the necessary guns, ammunition and equipment for instruction.Scott (1919), pp. 71-72
Ideas into practice
Promoted to the rank of captain in January 1893, Scott served on the Navy's Ordnance Committee until 1896.
Scott was appointed captain of on 28 May 1896.Scott (1919), p. 73. The Scylla was a 3400-ton cruiser in the British Mediterranean Fleet. During his time on the Scylla, Scott noted that night time signalling between ships in the fleet was slow and inaccurate. He addressed this in two ways: he devised training aids and put his signallers under instruction and he devised a new more effective flashing lamp. The new efficiency of his ship's signalling was quickly noticed by the Commander-in-Chief resulting in Scott's programme being adopted by the whole Mediterranean fleet. A report by the fleet's flag lieutenant to the Admiralty was submitted in 1899 setting out the inadequacies of the old system and promoting Scott's ideas. It was however, many years before they were adopted.Scott (1919), pp. 74-78
In 1897 and 1898 the Scylla achieved "very poor results" in its annual prize firing;Scott (1919), p. 81 and achieved 8% hits with her 6" guns and 13% with her 4.7" guns in the 1897 prize firing; average for the Mediterranean Fleet in 1897 was 24% for 6" and 35% for 4.7" guns.Padfield (1966), pp. 88–89. In the 1898 prize firing, Scylla achieved second place in the Mediterranean Fleet. Later in 1898, the Scylla was detached to make an independent cruise in the Eastern Mediterranean; and the Commander-in-Chief, Sir John Hopkins, gave Scott permission to make changes to gunnery training in the Scylla to improve the ship's shooting. Most gunnery training used a sub-calibre gun. Scott's crew initially tried giving a gun a telescopic sight, but this did not improve accuracy with sub-calibre firing. His crew then tested the 1" calibre sub-calibre gun they were using and found that its dispersion was unexpectedly high, even when mounted on a rigid platform on land. So they replaced it with a .303 Lee–Metford rifle as their sub-calibre gun.Scott (1919), pp. 82-88 This greatly improved accuracy with the telescopic sight. Experimentation showed that it was difficult for the man using the telescopic sight to adjust the sight whilst watching the target through the telescope; so Scott added an extra man to each gun crew, "whose duty was to raise or lower the sight according to the orders of the pointer. He was called the 'sight-setter'." At the time, the Admiralty expressed disapproval of this increase in the size of the gun crew, but four years later the sight-setter became a standard part of every gun crew. Since it was difficult for the gunner to see hits made by .303 ammunition on the standard Admiralty towing target, Scott's crew built a new towing target, which was adopted by the Admiralty as their standard towing target six years later. One day, the rolling of the ship meant that only one of the gunners were able to hit the target. Scott watched this man very closely, and had a training tool (the "dotter") built to teach gun teams to hit the target when the ship was rolling. on 2 September 1898, Scott wrote to Hopkins thanking him for his help in improving the gunnery of the Scylla. The Scyllas next prize firing was on 26 May 1899; she made 45% with her 6" guns and 80% hits with her 4.7" guns. This gave the Scylla the best score in heavy-gun prize firing that had been achieved so far in the Royal Navy. The Scylla returned to England in June 1899 and paid off.Scott (1919), pp. 88–89
Scott had a few months leave on half-pay, and was then given command of the much larger cruiser (14,400 tons) which was ordered to China. Expecting hostilities to break out in South Africa, Scott managed to persuade the Admiralty to allow him to make passage via the Cape of Good Hope rather than the originally planned Suez Canal route.Scott (1919), p. 91 Terrible arrived at the Cape in October 1899 to find war imminent. With no threat from the sea, Scott set about determining how he might adapt the navy's guns by mounting them on wheels for use on land to support the army, which lacked long-range artillery and found that its ordinary guns were out-ranged by the Boer artillery. The mountings looked somewhat amateurish, causing the authorities to regard them with considerable suspicion. However, they proved very effective and the role of two of his 4.7-inch guns at the Siege of Ladysmith became a matter of some notoriety.Scott (1919), pp. 95-105