Fleet in being



In naval warfare, a "fleet in being" is a naval force that extends a controlling influence without ever leaving port. Were the fleet to leave port and face the enemy, it might lose in battle and no longer influence the enemy's actions, but while it remains safely in port, the enemy is forced to continually deploy forces to guard against it. A "fleet in being" can be part of a sea denial doctrine, but not one of sea control.

Use of the term
The term was first used in 1690 when Lord Torrington, commander of the Royal Navy forces in the English Channel, found himself facing a stronger French fleet. He proposed avoiding a sea battle, except under very favourable conditions, until he could be reinforced. By thus keeping his "fleet in being", he could maintain an active threat which would force the enemy to remain in the area and prevent them from taking the initiative elsewhere.

Secondary use
Rudyard Kipling published a series of articles about the British Channel Fleet under the title A Fleet in Being in 1898, but did not use the term in the sense described here.

Concept
The "fleet in being" concept is based on the assumption that the fleet is relatively safe in port, even if near the enemy. After the battle of Taranto and the attack on Pearl Harbor, however, it became obvious that air power made a fleet concentrated in a port vulnerable, and a fleet in being was normally no longer a safe option. It is, of course, possible to imagine a situation where a fleet is still relatively safe in harbour, such as the opponent being unwilling to attack them in harbour for political reasons. After looking at the alternatives; "The strategy that was accepted for the Argentine Navy [in the 1982 Falklands War] was one of a 'fleet in being' concept ... The fleet would not conduct a direct attack; they would only attack when the odds were in their favor. Otherwise they would remain outside any declared British exclusion zones and wait for a target of opportunity". The Argentinians were not able to make any use positive value  of their "fleet in being" but they did avoid a negative result.

The idea of a "fleet in being" can be generalised to forces other than naval. A fortress under siege is essentially an "army in being", which ties up enemy forces without leaving the fortress or doing much fighting. During the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein used his air force with an operational doctrine analogous to "fleet in being". The mere presence of the Iraqi Air Force in hardened bunkers forced the coalition attacking Iraq to act cautiously and to escort its bomber sorties until the aircraft shelters were found to be vulnerable.

Russo-Japanese War 1904–5
The first modern example was the stand-off between the Imperial Russian Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) at Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War in 1904. Russia possessed three battle fleets: one in the Baltic Sea, the second in the Black Sea, and the third in the Far East. The Pacific squadron in the Far East was stationed at Vladivostok and Port Arthur. With the latter being closer to the land war, Port Arthur became strategically more important.

The IJN possessed only one battle fleet to the Russian Navy's three, therefore it was imperative that the IJN not have to fight all three of them. The Anglo-Japanese Treaty of 1902 effectively eliminated the Black Sea fleet by keeping it blocked in the Black Sea, lest they risk war with Great Britain. However, the Baltic Fleet (later renamed the 2nd Pacific Squadron) had orders to reinforce the Port Arthur squadron sometime in 1905. It would be the IJN's mission to preempt that move.

Only after Port Arthur's "fleet in being" was eliminated could the Baltic Fleet and Japanese fleet square off; and this would happen the following year, during the Battle of Tsushima in May 1905.

In order to permanently eliminate Port Arthur's battle squadron, the IJN initiated three operations. The first was a surprise destroyer torpedo attack inside the harbor in early February 1904, this was quickly followed up with an attempt to block the harbor's entrance by sinking old steam ships (block ships) in the channel. The third and final attempt of permanently bottling up the fleet was the mining of the waters surrounding the harbor's entrance. Although this last attempt also failed, it had the unintended consequence of robbing the Russian Navy of one of its most brilliant naval officers, Admiral Stepan Makarov. When his flagship, the battleship Petropavlovsk, struck one of those mines it sank almost immediately, taking Makarov with it to the bottom.

The "fleet in being" remained so, until under the new command of Admiral Vitgeft, the Port Arthur squadron was ordered to break out and steam for Vladivostok on 10 August 1904. Vitgeft's exit from Port Arthur resulted in the Battle of the Yellow Sea, an excessively long-ranged gun duel that resulted in no capital warships being sunk on either side, but finally eliminated Port Arthur's "fleet in being", as its warships became dispersed to neutral ports (where they were interned), and the survivors were so heavily damaged that they were no longer serviceable.

World War I
A more modern example is the stand-off between the German High Seas Fleet and the British Grand Fleet during World War I. Other than the inconclusive engagement at the Battle of Jutland, Germany preferred to keep its fleet intact rather than taking the risk of losing an engagement with the larger Royal Navy.

World War II
In World War II, actions of the Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina) in 1940 also demonstrate the idea of a "fleet in being". After a number of minor battles against the Royal Navy that were mostly lost or inconclusive, the Italian fleet was left in Taranto from where it could sortie very quickly against any British attempt to reach Malta. Because of this threat, the British decided to attack the Italian fleet at anchor during the famed Battle of Taranto. In this action, the British disabled for a long period three Italian battleships, about half of the Italian Navy's battleship strength. Realising that Taranto harbour was no longer safe, the Italians relocated the undamaged ships to ports further away. As a "fleet in being" is not very effective at a distance, the Italians were forced into combat and suffered repeated losses over the next two years.

Even more so than other surface vessels in the German Navy (Kriegsmarine), the powerful German battleship Tirpitz served her entire career as a "fleet in being" in her own right. Although she never fired a shot at an enemy ship, her mere presence forced the Royal Navy to allocate powerful warships in defending Arctic convoys, and caused a major convoy (PQ-17) to scatter, suffering huge losses, mainly to U-boats and aircraft.