ABSTRACT
In 1912, to the embarrassment of his fellow officers of the construction and weapons departments, Grand Admiral Tirpitz, the so-called ‘father of the German High Seas Fleet’, ruled that German battleships still were to have a ram, ‘for in a mêlée the ram would give a feeling of security’.1 With this rather astonishing statement Tirpitz created the impression that he still adhered to concepts of battle like that of Salamis between the Greek and Persian fleets in ancient times or that of Lissa, when Admiral Tegethoff, out of mere desperation and not through a well-planned tactical manoeuvre, sank the Italian flagship and secured victory over a superior fleet. Around the turn of the century, many admirals still clung to the idea of a battle at close range. At the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, as a result of the ‘dreadnought’ revolution, there could be no doubt that battles would be fought at increasingly greater ranges. Thus, fear of torpedoes and the firing range of big guns made Tirpitz’s decision about rams seem rather strange, to say nothing of the cost and the weight of this useless military device.
