Volume 76, Number 4 (2023) Autumn 2023

Sailors on USS Florida (BB 30) conduct a loading drill on one of the ship’s secondary-battery guns in 1915. Note the projectile, bagged powder charge, rammer, opened gun-breech mechanism, sighting telescope on the left side of the gun, and telephone talker standing nearby. Also note that one of the gun crewmen has bare feet. In “Laying the Groundwork for Sims: Albert P. Niblack as the First USN Inspector of Target Practice, and the Gunnery Revolution of the U.S. Navy,” Andrew K. Blackley discusses the different personal and professional approaches of and interrelationships among Niblack and William S. Sims, their higher-ups in the Navy bureaucracy, and the presidential administration of Theodore Roosevelt during a crucial and dynamic period in USN history.