Battle of Santiago de Cuba
The Battle of Santiago de Cuba, fought off the naval port of that name on the north coast of Cuba on 3 July, 1898 was one of two main naval actions of the Spanish-American War.
A Spanish squadron of four armoured cruisers and two destroyers under the command of Pascual Cervera vainly sought to escape an American blockading force of four battleships and three cruisers but was annihilated in a running battle along the coast.
With so few naval actions in the years running up to World War I to forge the thinking of naval commanders and planners, this action, along with the Battle of Manila Bay and the battles of the Russo-Japanese War were pored over and analysed. A distinct component of this analysis was naturally to see how gunnery was progressing.
| United States Navy Gunnery at Santiago de Cuba[1] | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Calibre (inches) | Rounds Fired | Hits | Per Cent |
| 13 | 47 | 0 | 0 |
| 12 | 39 | 2 | 5 |
| 8 | 219 | 10 | 5.5 |
| 6 | 271 | 17 | 2 |
| 5 | 473 | ||
| 4 | 251 | 13 | 5 |
| 6 pdr | 6,553 | 76 | 1 |
Footnotes
- ↑ Brown. Warrior to Dreadnought. p. 167.
Bibliography
- Brown, David K, RCNC (2003). Warrior to Dreadnought: Warship Development 1860 — 1905. London: Chatham Publishing. (on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk).
