Reginald Bacon linked naval mobility to a base network

Reginald Bacon's 1901 notes show how Royal Navy officers framed the logistical future. Warships were self-contained while moving between bases and could shift theaters faster and more discreetly than land forces, but their bases still needed reliable communications and supply arrangements. Geographic choke points such as Gibraltar, Suez, Singapore, and the Dardanelles could reveal movements, yet the open sea otherwise offered unusual freedom of maneuver. Modern satellites and communications make concealment harder without eliminating the fleet's capacity to produce strategic surprise through rapid redeployment. Bacon identifies coal endurance as the physical limit on this mobility and gives the problem the revealing name "coal strategy."