Command at Sea: Naval Command and Control Since the Sixteenth Century

Palmer has writtem an supberb account of the development of naval tactics. According to Palmer there was an debate about whether intiative should be left to individual captains or the commanding admiral. Palmer believes that the British used decentralized tactics effectively against the French who were tied to centralized command during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Pamler writes that the use of decentralized tactics depended on an educated officer corps since when the French admiral Suffren tried British tactics he failed miserably due to an lack of individual intiative among the French officers. During the First World War, the British adopted centralized tactics and this hampered their performance during the Battle of Jutland. However in the Second World War, the British used decentralized tactics successfully against the Italians. Both the Americans and the Japanese used decentralized tactics during the Pacific War, but the Germans used a centralized approach that left them vulnerable to allied radio interception. The only weakness of this book is that Palmer leaves out the curriculum of naval officer cadet schools and how this influenced the tactical approach of opposing fleets. Nevertheless this book is an excellent account of different types of naval leadership.